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THE AVERA 


Bible Collection. 


Library of Trinity College, 
DURHAM, N.C 


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Received 22-424... 4.7 











THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 





THE 
MANLINESS OF CHRIST 


BY 


THOMAS HUGHES, Q. C. 


AUTHOR OF ‘‘ TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL DAYS,”’ ETG 





A 
\S 
x 
4 
= BOSTON AND NEW YORK 


HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
Che Viverside Press Cambridge 





NOTE. 


—-—— 


Tue greater part of the following pages 
appeared originally in “Good Words,” and 
are now republished with the permission 
of the proprietors of that magazine. 

T. H. 


45262. 





CONTENTS. 


INTRODUCTORY. 
Page 


Tan Morivn or THE BooK. .. « « Per 1 


PART L 


Tae Horny Lanp a. vp. 30— THe Battie Firtp 
OF THE GREAT CAPTAIN. . 2 «© © «© ©» eo @ 8 


PART IZ. 


THe Tests OF MANLINESS . 2 » 0 © » 2» © 1 


PART IIL 


Curist’s BoyHoop .....-.oscoee SS 


PART IV. 


Tum Camu ow CHRIST . . 1. 0 » ce wo wo 61 


PART V. 


Cunist’s Ministry. AorL. ., ...4 see @7 


Vili CONTENTS. 


PART VL 


Curist’s Ministry. AorIL . 


PART VIL 


Caerst’s Ministery. Aor IIL. . 


PART VIIL 


TamsGAerzAcr. . « « i ~- ate 


Comcuwsion . 2. ww tw we 


THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 





INTRODUCTORY. 
THE MOTIVE OF THE BOOK. 


SoME time ago, when I was considering 
what method it would be best to adopt in 
Sunday -afternoon readings with a small 
class in the Working Men’s College, I re- 
ceived a communication which helped me 
to come to a decision. It came in the form 
of a proposal for a new association, to be 
called ‘‘ The Christian Guild.” The pro- 
moters were persons living in our north- 
ern towns, some of which had lately gained 
a bad reputation for savage assaults and 
crimes of violence. My correspondents be- 
lieved that some organized effort ought to 
be made to meet this evil, and that there 


was nothing in existence which would serve 
1 


2 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


their purpose. The Young Men’s Christian 
Associations had increased of late, indeed, 
in numbers, but had failed to reach the 
class which most needed Christian influ- 
ences. There was a wide-spread feeling, 
they said, that these associations — valu- 
able as they allowed them to be in many 
ways —did not cultivate individual manli- 
ness in their members, and that this defect 
was closely connected with their open pro- 
fession of Christianity. They had separ- 
ated their members too much from the ordi- 
nary habits and life of young men; and 
had set before them a wrong standard, 
which taught, not that they were to live in 
the world and subdue it to their Master, 
but were to withdraw from it as much as 
possible. 

Therefore they would found their new 
“Christian Guild” on quite other princi- 
ples. They aimed, indeed, at something 
like a revival of the muscular Christianity 
of twenty-five years ago, organized for mis- 
sionary work in the great northern towns 


INTRODUCTORY. 3 


The members of the Guild ‘must be first of 
all Christians, but selected as far as possi- 
ble for some act of physical courage or 
prowess. It was proposed that the medal 
of the Royal Humane Society, or the cham- 
pionship of a town ‘or district in running, 
wrestling, rowing, or other athletic exer- 
cise, should qualify at once for membership. 
These first members were to form the root, 
as it were, out of which branches of the 
Guild were to grow — one, they hoped, in 
every great centre of population. Each 
branch, if properly supported, might attract 
the most vigorous and energetic young men 
of its district, and so by degrees give a 
higher tone to the sports and occupations 
which absorb the spare time and energies 
of young Englishmen. 

I did not see my way to joining any such 
movement, which, indeed, never seemed at 
all hopeful to me; nor do I know whether 
anything more has been done in the mat- 
ter. But the proposal set me thinking on 
the state of things amongst us which the 


4 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


Christian Guild was intended to meet. J 
was obliged to admit that my own experi- 
ence, now stretching over a quarter of a 
century in London, agreed to some extent 
with that of my northern correspondents. 
Here, too, this same feeling éxists, or it may 
be this same prejudice, as to “ Young 
Men’s Christian Associations ” amongst the 
class from which their members are for the 
most part taken. Their tone and influence 
are said to lack manliness, and the want of 
manliness is attributed to their avowed pro- 
fession of Christianity. If you pursue the 
inquiry, you will often come upon a distinct 
belief that this weakness is inherent in our 
English religion ; that our Christianity does 
appeal and must appeal habitually and 
mainly to men’s fears—to that in them 
which is timid and shrinking, rather than 
to that which is courageous and outspoken. 
This strange delusion is often alleged as 
the cause of the want of power and attrac 
tion in these associations. 

I do not myself at all share this opinion 


IN?PRODUCIURY. b 


as to the Young Men’s Christian Associa- 
tions, for, so far as I have had the means 
of judging, they seem to me, especially in 
the last few years, to have been doing ex- 
cellent service, though they work in a nar- 
row groove. But whether this be so or 
not is a matter of comparative indiffer- 
ence, and the controversy may safely be left 
to settle itself. But the underlying belief 
in the rising generation that Christianity is 
really responsible for this supposed weak- 
ness in its disciples, is one which ought not 
to be so treated. The conscience of every 
man recognizes courage as the foundation 
of manliness, and manliness as the perfec 
tion of human character, and if Christian- 
ity runs counter to conscience in this mat 
ter, or indeed in any other, Christianity 
will go to the wall. 

But does it? On the contrary, is not 
verfection of character — “Be ye perfect 
as your Father in heaven is perfect,” per- 
fection to ve reached by moral effort in the 
faithful fullowing of our Lord’s life on 


6 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


earth —the ‘final aim which the Christia 4 
religion sets before individual men; and 
constant contact and conflict with evil of 
all kinds the necessary condition of that 
moral effort, and the means adopted by our 
Master, in the world in which we live, and 
for which He died? In that strife, then, 
the first requisite is courage or manfuiness, 
gained through conflict with evil, — for 
without such conflict there can be no per- 
fection of character, the end for which 
Christ says we were sent into this world. 
But was Christ’s own character perfect in 
this respect, — not only in charity, meek- 
ness, purity, long-suffering, but in courage ? 
If not, can He be anything more than the 
highest and best of men, even if He were 
that; can He be the Son of God in any 
sense except that in which all men are 
sons ? 

This was the question which was forced 
on me at the time by the proposals of the 
Christian Guild, and it gave me the hint I 
was in search of as to the method of our 


INTRODUCTORY. 7 


Sunday readings. We followed it up as 
well as we could through the events re- 
corded in the gospels, applying the test at 
every stage of the drama. The results are 
collected in the following papers. 


PART I. 


THE HOLY LAND A. D. 830—THE BATTLE 
FIELD OF THE GREAT CAPTAIN, 


‘ Pheenicia and Palestine were sometimes annexed to and 
sometimes separated from the jurisdiction of Syria. The for- 
mer was a narrow and rocky coast ; the latter was a territory 
scascely superior to Wales in fertility or extent! Yet Phe- 
nicia and Palestine will ever live in the memory of mankind, 
since America as well as Europe has received letters from the 
one and religion from the other.’? — GrBBon, chap. i. 


IN order to approach our subject with 
any chance of making the central figure 
clear to ourselves, and getting out of the 
atmosphere of unreality in which our ordi- 
nary religious training is too apt to leave us, 
we must make an effort to understand the 
condition and the surroundings of life in 
Palestine when our Lord appeared in it asa 
leader and teacher. 

Take first the southern portion, the scene 
vf the opening and closing days of His mix 


THE HOLY LAND A. D. 30. 9 


istry, and of periodical visits during those 
three years. While He was still a boy un- 
der ten years of age the Romans had de- 
posed Herod Archelaus, and had annexed 
Judza, which was from thenceforth ruled 
as a province of the Empire by a Roman 
procurator. The rebellion of Judas of Ga 
mala, which followed shortly afterwards, 
was a fierce protest of the Jews against the 
imperial taxation and the yoke of Rome. 
It was suppressed in the stern, Roman fash- 
ion, and from that time till the commence- 
ment of Christ’s public ministry Jerusalem 
and the surrounding country were on the 
verge of revolt, a constant source of anxiety 
to the Roman procurators, and held down 
with difficulty by the heavy hand of the le- 
gions which garrisoned them. 

All that was best and worst in the Jew- 
ish character and history combined to ren- 
der the Roman yoke intolerably galling to 
the nation. The peculiar position of Jeru- 
salem —a sort of Mecca to the tribes ac- 
knowledging the Mosaic law — made Syria 


Ri, 


; | ter Bix Da ‘ 


ee 


ae 


a 


10 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


the most dangerous of all the Roman prov- 
inces. To that city enormous crowds of pil- 
grims, of the most stiff-necked and fanatical 
of all raves, flocked three times at least in 
every year, bringing with them offerings 
and tribute for the temple and its guar- 
dians, on a scale which must have made the 
hierarchy at Jerusalem formidable even to 
the world’s master, by their mere command 
of wealth. 

But this would be the least of the causes 
of anxiety to the Roman governor, as he 
spent year after year face to face with these 
terrible leaders of a terrible people. 

These high priests and rulers of the Jews 
were indeed quite another kind of adver- 
saries from the leaders, secular or religious, 
of any of those conquered countries which 
the Romans were wont to treat with con- 
temptuous toleration. They still represent- 
ed living traditions of the glory and sane- 
tity of their nation, and of Jerusalem, and 
exercised still a power over that nation 
which the most resolute and ruthless of Ro 


V 


THE HOLY LAND A. D. 30. 11 


man procurators did not care wantonly to 
brave. 

At the same time the yoke of high priest 
and scribe and pharisee was even heavier 
on the necks of their own people than that 
of the Roman. They had built up a huge 
superstructure of traditions and ceremonies 
round the law of Moses, which they held 
up to the people as more sacred and bind- 
ing than the law itself. This superstruct- 
ure was their special charge. This was, 
according to them, the great national in- 
heritance, the most valuable portion of the 
covenant which God had made with their 
fathers. To them, as leaders of their na- 
tion, —a select, priestly, and learned caste, 
— this precious inheritance had been com- 
mitted. Outside that caste, the dim multi- . 
tude, “the people which knoweth not the 
law,”’ were despised while they obeyed, ac- 
cursed as soon as they showed any sign of 
disobedience. Such being the state of Ju- 
dzea, it would not be easy to name in all 
history a less hopeful place for the reform- 


92 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


mg mission of a young carpenter, a stran: 
ger from a despised province, one entirely 
vutside the ruling caste, though of the 
royal race, and who had no position what- 
ever in any rabbinical school. 

In Galilee the surroundings were slight- 
ly different, but scarcely more promising, 
Herod Antipas, the weakest of that tyrant 
family, the seducer of his brother’s wife, 
the fawner on Cesar, the spendthrift op- 
pressor of the people of his tetrarchy, still 
ruled in name over the country, but with 
Roman garrisons in the cities and strong- 
holds. Face to face with him, and exereis- 
ing an imperium in imperio throughout Gal- 
ilee, were the same priestly caste, though 
far less formidable to the civil power, and 
. to the people, than in the southern prov 
ince. Along the western coast of the Sea 
of Galilee, the chief scene of our Lord’s 
northern ministry, lay a net-work of towns 
densely inhabited, and containing a large 
admixture of Gentile traders. This infus- 
ion of foreign blood, the want of any such / 


THE HOLY LAND A. D. 30. 13 


religious centre as Jerusalem, and the con- 
tempt with which the southern Jews re- / 
garded their provincial brethren of Galilee, 
had no doubt loosened to some extent the 
yoke of the priests and scribes and law- 
yers in that province. But even here their 
traditionary power over the masses of the 
people was very great, and the conse- 
quences of defying their authority as penal, 
though the penalty might be neither so 
swift or so certain, as in Jerusalem itself. 
Such was the society into which Christ 
came. 

It is not easy to find a parallel case in 
the modern world, but perhaps the nearest 
exists in a portion of our own empire. The 
condition of parts of India in our day ree ¥ 
sembles in some respects that of Palestine 
in the year A. D. 30. In the Mahratta 
country, princes, not of the native dynasty, 
but the descendants of foreign courtiers 
{like the Idumzan Herods), are reigning. 
British residents at their courts, hated and 
feared, but practically all-powerful as Ro- 


14 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


man procurators, answer to the officers and 
garrisons of Rome in Palestine. The peo- 
ple are in bondage to a priestly caste scarce- 
ly less heavy than that which weighed on 
the Judean and Galilean peasantry. If 
the Mahrattas were Mohammedans, and 
Mecca were situate in the territory of Sein 
diah or Holkar; if the influence of twelve 
centuries of Christian training could be 
wiped out of the English character, and the 
stubborn and fierce nature of the Jew sub- 
stituted for that of the Mahratta; a village 
reformer amongst them, whose preaching 
outraged the Brahmins, threatened the dy- 
nasties, and disturbed the English residents, 
would start under somewhat similar condi- 
tions to those which surrounded Christ when 
He commenced his ministry. 

In one respect, and one only, the time 
veemed propitious. The mind and heart of 
the nation was full of the expectation of a 
coming Messiah—a King who should break 
every yoke from off the necks of his peo 
pie, and should rule over the nations, sit 


THE HOLY LAND A. D. 30. 15 


ting on the throne of David. The intensity 
of this expectation had, in the opening days 
of his ministry, drawn crowds into the wil- 
derness beyond Jordan from all parts of 
Judea and Galilee, at the summons of a 
preacher who had caught up the last ca- 
dence of the song of their last great prophet, 
and was proclaiming that both the deliver- 
ance and the kingdom which they were 
looking for were at hand. In those crowds 
who flocked to hear John the Baptist there 
were doubtless some even amongst the 
priests and scribes, and many amongst the 
poor Jewish and Galilean peasantry, who 
felt that there was a heavier yoke upon 
them than that of Rome or of Herod An- 
tipas. But the record of the next three 
years: shows too clearly that even these 
were wholly unprepared for any other than 
a kingdom of this world, and a temporal 
throne to be set up in the holy city. 

And so, from the first, Christ had to con= 
tend not only against the whole of the es- 
tablished powers of Palestine, but against 


16 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


the highest aspirations of the best of his 
countrymen. ‘These very Messianic hopes, 
in fact, proved the greatest stumbling-block 
in his path. Those who entertained them 
most vividly had the greatest difficulty in 
accepting the carpenter’s son as the prom- 
ised Deliverer. A few days only before 
the end He had sorrowfully to warn the 
most intimate and loving of his compan- 
ions and disciples, “Ye-know not what 
spirit ye are of.” 

We must endeavor to keep these exter- 
nal conditions and surroundings of the life 
of a Galilean peasant in the reigns of Au- 
gustus and Tiberius Cesar in our minds, if 
we really wish honestly to understand and 
appreciate the work done by one of them 
in those three short years, or the character 
ef the doer of it. 


PART IL. 


THE TESTS OF MANLINESS. 


“*Qktvius in palatio Julius Atticus speculator, cruentum 
giadium ostentans, occisum a se Othonem, exclamavit; et 
Galba, ‘Commilito,’ inquit, ‘quis jussit ?’ insigni animo ad 
eoercendam militarem licentiam, minantibus intrepidus, ad- 
versus blandientes incorruptus.”’ — Tacit. Hist., lib. i., cap. 
XXXY. 


ONE other precaution we must take at 
‘the outset of our inquiry, and that is, to 
settle for ourselves, without diverging into 
useless metaphysics, what we mean by 
‘‘manliness, manfulness, courage.” My 
friends of the Christian Guild seemed to 
assume that these words all have the same 
meaning, and denote the same qualities, 
Now, is this so? I think not, if we take 
the common use of the words. “Manliness 
and manfulness” are synonymous, but they 
embrace more than we ordinarily mean by 


the word “courage;” for instance, tender- 
a 


18 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


ness, and thoughtfulness for others. They 
include that courage which lies at the root 
of all manliness, but is, in fact, only its 
fowest or rudest form. Indeed, we must 
admit that it is not exclusively a human 
quality at all, but one which we share with 
other animals, and which some of them — 
for instance, the bulldog and weasel —ex- 
hibit with a certainty and a thoroughness 
which is very rare amongst mankind. 

In what, then, does courage, in this ordi- 
nary sense of the word, consist? First, in 
persistency, or the determination to have 
one’s own way, coupled with contempt for 
safety and ease, and readiness to risk pain 
or death in getting one’s own way. This 
is, let us readily admit, a valuable, even a 
noble quality, but an animal quality rathe. 
than a human or manly one, and obviously 
not that quality of which the promoters of 
the Christian Guild were in search. For I 
fear we cannot deny that this kind of cour- 
age is by no means incompatible with those 
savage or brutal habits of violence which 


THE TESTS OF MANLINESS. 19 


the Guild was specially designed to put 
down and root out amongst our people. 
What they desired to cultivate wasob- 
viously, not animal, but manly, courage ; 
and the fact that we are driven to use these 
epithets “animal” and “ manly” to make 
our meaning clear, shows, I think, the ne- 
cessity of insisting on this distinction and 
keeping it well in mind. 

We should note, also, that the tests of 
the Guild were, with one exception, not 
really adapted as tests even of animal cour- 
age, much less of manliness. For they pro- 
posed that the possession of the Royal 
Humane Society’s medal, or the badge on 
excellence in athletic games, should be the 
qualification for the first members. Now 
the possession of the medal does amount to 
prima facie evidence, not only of animal 
courage but of manliness; for it can only 
be won by an act involving not only per- 
sistency and contempt of pain and danger, 
but self-sacrifice for the welfare of another 
But proficiency in athietic games has no 


90 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


such meaning, and is not necessarily a test 
even of animal courage, but only of mus: 
cular power and physical training. Even 
in those games which, to some extent, do 
afford a test of the persistency, and con- 
tempt for discomfort or pain, which con- 
stitute animal courage, —such as rowing, — 
boxing, and wrestling, — it is of necessity a 
most unsatisfactory one. For instance, 
Nelson, —as courageous an Englishman as 
ever lived, who attacked a Polar bear with 
a handspike when he was a boy of fourteen, 
and told his captain, when he was scolded 
for it, that he did not know Mr. Fear, — 
with his slight frame and weak constitution, 
could never have won a boat race, and in a 
match would have been hopelessly astern of 
any one of the crew of his own barge; and 
the highest courage which ever animated a 
human body would not enable the owner of 
it, if he were himself untrained, to stand 
for five minutes against a trained wrestler 
ar boxer. 

Athleticism is a good thing if kept in ite 


THE TESTS OF MANLINESS. nal 


a pat it has come to be oe much 
as I think these proposals of the Christian 
Guild, for the attainment of their most 
admirable and needful aim, tend to show 
clearly enough, if proof were needed. We 
may say, then, I think, without doubt, that 
its promoters were not on the right scent, 
or likely to get what they were in search of 
by the methods they proposed to use. For 
after getting their Society of Athletes it 
might quite possibly turn out to be com- 
posed of persons deficient in real manliness. 

While, however, keeping this conclusion 
well in mind, we need not at all depreciate 
athleticism, which has in it much that is 
useful to society, and is indeed admirable 
enough in its own way. But as the next 
step in our inquiry, let us bear well in 
mind that athleticism is not what we mean 
here. True manliness is as likely to be 
found in a weak as in a strong body 
Other things being equal, ws may perhaps 
admit (though I should hesitate to do so) 


22 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


that a man with a highly-trained and de 
veloped body will be more courageous than 
a weak man. But we must take this cau- 
tion with us, that a great athlete may be a 
brute or a coward, while a truly manly 
man can be neither. 

Having got thus far, and satisfied our- 
selves what is not of the essence of manli- 
ness, though often assumed to be so (as by 
the promoters of the Christian Guild), let 
us see if we cannot get on another step, 
and ascertain what is of that essence. And 
here it may be useful to take a few well- 
known instances of courageous deeds and 
examine them; because if we can find out 
any common quality in them we shall have 
lighted on something which is of the em 
sence of, or inseparable from, that manli- 
ness which includes courage —that manli- 
ness of which we are in search. 

"I will take two or three at hazard frém a 
book in which they abound, and which was 
a great favorite here some years ago, as J 
hope it is still, I mean Napier’s “ Penin 


THE TESTS OF MANLINESS. 23 


sular War.” At the end of the storming 
of Badajoz, after speaking of the officers, 
Napier goes on, “ Who shall describe the 
springing valor of that Portuguese grena- 
dier who was killed the foremost man at 
Santa Maria? or the martial fury of that 
desperate rifleman, who, in his resolution to 
win, thrust himself beneath the chained 
sword blades, and then suffered the enemy 
to dash his head in pieces with the ends of 
their muskets.’ Again, at the Coa, “a 
north of Ireland man named Stewart, but 
jocularly called ‘the Boy,’ because of his 
youth, nineteen, and of his gigantic stature 
and strength, who had fought bravely and 
displayed great intelligence beyond the 
river, was one of the last men who came 
down to the bridge, but he would not pass. 
Turning round he regarded the French 
with a grim look, and spoke aloud as fol- 
lows: ‘So this is the end of our brag. 
This is our first battle, and we retreat‘ 
The boy Stewart will not live to hear that 
said.’ Then striding forward in his giant 


94 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


might he fell furiously on the nearest ene 
mies with the bayonet, refused the quarter 
they seemed desirous of granting, and died 
fighting in the midst of them.” 

‘Still more touching, more noble, more 
heroic, was the death of Sergeant Robert 
McQuade. During McLeod’s rush this 
man, also from the north of Ireland, saw 
two men level their muskets on rests 
against a high gap in a bank, awaiting the 
uprise of an enemy. The present Adju- 
tant-general Brown, then a lad of sixteen, 
attempted to ascend at the fatal spot. Me- 
Quade, himself only twenty-four years of 
age, pulled him back, saying, in a calm, 
decided tone, ‘ You are too young, sir, to be 
killed,’ and then offering his own person to 
the fire fell dead pierced with both balls.” 
And, speaking of the British soldier gen- 
erally, he says in his preface, “ What they 
were their successors now are. Witness 
the wreck of the Birkenhead, where four 
hundred men, at the call of their heroic offi- 
cers, Captains Wright and Girardot, calmly 


THE TESTS OF MANLINESS. 25 


and without a murmur accepted death in a 
horrible form rather than endanger the 
women and children saved in the boats. 
The records of the world furnish no parallel 
to this self-devotion.” Let us add to these 
two very recent examples of which we have 
all been reading in the last few months: the 
poor colliers who worked day and night 
at Pont-y-pridd, with their lives in their 
hands, to rescue their buried comrades; 
and the gambler in St. Louis who went 
straight from the gaming-table into the fire, 
to the rescue of women and children, and 
died of the hurts after his third return from 
the flames. 

Looking, then, at these several cases, we 
find in each that resolution in the actors te 
have their way, contempt for ease, and 
readiness to risk pain or death, which we 
noted as the special characteristics of ani 
mal courage, which we share with the bull- 
dog and weasel. 

So far ail of them are alike. Can we get 
any further? Not much, if we take the 


26 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


ease of the rifleman who thrust his head 
under the sword-blades and allowed his 
brains to be knocked out sooner than draw 
it back, or that of ‘the boy Stewart.” 
These are intense assertions of individual 
will and force,— avowals of the rough hard- 
handed man that he has that in him which 
enables him to defy pain and danger and 
death, — this and little or nothing more; 
and no doubt a very valuable and admira- 
ble thing as it stands. 

But we feel, I think, at once, that there 
ts something more in the act of Sergeant 
McQuade, and of the miners in Pont-y- 
pridd —something higher and more admi- 
rable. And it is not, a mere question of ~ 
degree, of more or less, in the quality of 
animal courage. The rifleman and ‘the 
boy Stewart ” were each of them persistent 
to death, and no man can be more. The 
acts were, then, equally courageous, so far 
as persistency and scorn of danger ana 
death are concerned. We must look else- 
where for the difference, for that which 


6 


ay 


THE TESTS OF MANLINESS. Q7 


touches us more deeply in the case of Ser- 
geant McQuade than in that of “the boy 
Stewart,” and can only find it in the mo- 
tive. At least it seems to me that the 
worth of the last lies mainly in the sub- 
limity of self-assertion, of the other in the 
sublimity of self-sacrifice. 

And this holds good again in the case 
of the Birkenhead. Captain Wright gave 
the word for the men to fall in on deck by 
companies, knowing that the sea below 
them was full of sharks, and that the ship 
could not possibly float till the boats came 
back; and the men fell in, knowing this 
also, and stood at attention without utter- 
ing a word, till she heeled over and went 
down under them. And Napier, with all 
iis delight in physical force and prowess, 
and his intense appreciation of the qualities 
which shine most brightly in the fiery ac- 
tion of battle, gives the palm to these when 
he writes, ‘‘ The records of the world fur- 
nish no parallel to this self-devotion.” He 
was no mean judge in such a case; and, if 


28 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST... 


he is right, as I think he is, do we not get 
another side-light on our inquiry, and find 
that the highest temper of physical courage 
is not to be found, or perfected, in action 
but in repose? All physical effort relieves 
the strain, and makes it easier to persist 
anto death, under the stimulus and excite. 
ment of the shock of battle, or of violent 
exertion of any kind, than when the effort 
has to be made with grounded arms. In 
other words, may we not say that in the 
face of danger self-restraint is after all the 
highest form of self-assertion, and a charac- 
teristic of manliness as distinguished from 
courage ? 

But we have only been looking hitherto 
at one small side of a great subject, at the 
courage which is tested in times of terror, 
mm the battle-field, in the sinking ship, the 
poisoned mine, the blazing house. Such 
sesting times come to few, and to these not 
often in their lives. But, on the other 
nand, the daily life of every one of us teems 
with occasions which will try the temper of 


Ps 


THE TESTS Vr MANLINESS. 29 


dur courage as searchingly, though not as 
terribly, as battle-field or fire or wreck. 
For we are born into a state of war; with 





falsehood and disease and wrong and mis- 
ery, in a thousand forms, lying all around 
us, and the voice within calling on us to 
ake our stand as men in the eternal battle 
against these. 

And in this life-long fight, to be waged 
by every one of us single-handed against a 
host of foes, the last requisite for a good 
fight, the last proof and test of our courage 
the most rare and difficult of all human 
qualities. For such loyalty, as it grcws in 
perfection, asks ever more and more of us, 
and sets before us a standard of manliness 
always rising higher and higher. 

And this is the great lesson which we 
shall learn from Christ’s life, the more 


_ earnestly and faithfully we study it. ‘ For 


| 


\ 


} 


\ 


} 
i 
} 


_ this end was I born, and for this cause 
, same I into the world, to bear witness 


to the truth.” To bear this witness against 


B0 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


avowed and open enemies is comparatively 
easy. But to bear it against those we love, 
against those whose judgment and opinions 
we respect, in defense or futherance of that 

which approves itself as true to our own in- 
"most conscience, this is the last and abiding 
test of courage and of manliness. How nat- 
ural, nay, how inevitable it is, that we 
should fall into the habit of appreciating 
and judging things mainly by the standards 
-n common use amongst those we respect 
and love. But these very standards are apt 
to break down with us when we are brought 
face to face with some question which takes 
us ever so little out of ourselves and our 
usual moods. At such times we are driven 
to admit in our hearts that we, and those 
we respect and love, have been looking at 
and judging things, not truthfully, and 
therefore not courageously and manfully, 
but conventionally. And then comes one 
of the most searching of all trials of courage 
and manliness, when a man or woman ig 
talled to stand by what approves itself te 


THE TESTS OF MANLINESS. 31 


their consciences as true, and to protest for 
it through evil report and good report, 
against all discouragement and opposition 
from those they love or respect. The sense 
of antagonism instead of rest, of distrust 
and alienation instead of approval and sym- 
pathy, which such times bring, is a test 
which tries the very heart and reins, and 
it is one which meets us at all ages, and in 
all conditions of life. Emerson’s hero is the 
man who, “ taking both reputation and life 
in his hand, will with perfect urbanity dare 
the gibbet and the mob, by the absolute 
truth of his speech and rectitude of his 
behavior.” And, even in our peaceful 
and prosperous England, absolute truth of 
speech and rectitude of behavior will not 
fail to bring their fiery trials, if also in th 
end their exceeding great rewards. 

We may note, too, that in testing manli- 
ness as distinguished from courage, we shall 
haye to reckon sooner or later with the idea 
nf duty. Nelson’s column stands in the 
most conspicuous site in all London, and 


82 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


stands there with all men’s approval, not 
because of his daring courage. Lord Peters 
borough in a former generation, Lord Dun- 
donald in the one which succeeded, were 
at least as eminent for recklessand success- 
ful daring. But it is because the idea of 
devotion to duty is inseparably connected 
with Nelson’s name in the minds of Eng- 
lishmen, that he has been lifted high above 
all his compeers in England’s capital. 

In the throes of one of the terrible revo- 
lutions of the worst days of imperial Rome, 
— when probably the cruellest mob and 
most licentious soldiery of all time were 
raging round the palace of the Caesars, ahd 
the chances of an hour would decide whether 
Galba or Otho should rule the world, the 
alternative being a violent death, — an of- 
ficer of the guard, one Julius Atticus, rushed 
into Galba’s presence with a bloody sword, 
boasting that he had slain his rival, Otho. 
“My comrade, by whose order?” was his 
only greeting from the old Pagan chief 
And the story has come down through eigh 


THE TESTS OF MANLINESS. 33 


teen centuries, in the terse strong sentences 
of the great historian prefixed to this chap- 
ter, a test for all times. 

Comrade, who ordered thee? whose will 
art thou doing? It is the question which 
has to be asked of every fighting man, in 
whatever part of the great battle-field he 
comes to the front, and determines the man- 
liness of soldier, statesman, parson, of every 
strong man, and suffering woman. 


‘‘ Three roots bear up Dominion: knowledge, will, 
These two are strong ; but stronger still the third, 
Obedience : ’tis the great tap root, which still, 
Knit round the rock of Duty, is not stirred, 
Though storm and tempest spend their utmost skill.’ 


I think that the more thoroughly we sift 
and search out this question the more surely 
we shall come to this as the conclusion of 
the whole matter. Tenacity of will, or will- 
fulness, lies at the root of all courage, but 
courage can only rise into true manliness 
when the will is surrendered ; and the more 
absolute the surrender of the will the more 
perfect will be the temper of our courage 


and the strength of our mantiness. 
3 


84 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 

“Strong Son of God, immortal Love,” 
our laureate has pleaded, in the moment of 
his highest inspiration, 

‘Our wills are ours to make them thine.” 

And that strong Son of God to whom this 
ery has gone up in our day, and in all days, 
has left us the secret of his strength in the 
words, “I am come to do the will of my 
Father and your Father.” 


PART II. 


CHRIST’S BOYHOOD. 


®* So close is glory to our dust, 
So near is God to man; 
When duty whispers low, Thou must, 
The youth replies, I can.”” — EMERSOR. 
ONE great difficulty meets the student of 
our Lord’s life and character from what- 
ever side, and with whatever purpose, he 
may approach t. The whole authentic rec- 
ord of that life, up to the time of his bap- 
tism, when He was already thirty years 
old, is comprised in half-a-dozen sentences. 
All that we know is the story of his visit 
to Jerusalem at the age of twelve, when He 
was lost in the crush of the great feast, and 
his parents turned back to look for Him: 
‘ And it came to pass, that after three days 
they found Him in the temple, sitting at the 
feet of the doctors, both hearing them and 
asking them questions. And all that heard 


86 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


Him were astonished at his understanding 
and answers. And when they saw Him 
they were amazed, and his mother said 
unto Him, Son, why hast thou so dealt with 
us? Behold, thy father and I have sough* 
thee sorrowing. And He said unto them, 
How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not 
that I must be about my Father’s business? 
And they understood not this saying which 
He spake unto them. And He went down 
to Nazareth and was subject unto them.” 
The silence of the evangelists as to all 
other details of his youth and early man- 
hood, except this one short incident, which 
belongs rather to his public than to his 
private life, is intended no doubt to fix our 
attention on the former, as that which most 
concerns us. At the same time it is impos 
sible for those who will follow, as best they 
may, Christ’s steps and teaching, setting 
before themselves that highest outcome and 
aim of it all, “‘ be ye perfect as your Father 
in heaven is perfect,” not to turn often ix 


thought to those early vears of his in whick . 


i 


> 


ted 
7 


if 


” 


é. 


CHRIST'S BOYHOOD. 87 


the weapons must have been forged, and 
the character formed and matured, for the 
mighty war. 

And it cannot be denied that, to such 
seekers, this short temple story is in many. — 
ways baffling, even discouraging. There is 
something at first sight, willful indeed, pos- 
sibly courageous, but not manly, in a boy 
of twelve staying behind his parents in a 
strange city without their knowledge or 
consent; something thoughtless, almost un- 
gracious, in the words of reply to Mary’s 
“thy father and I have sought thee sorrow- 
ing” —“ How is it that ye sought me? 
wist ye not that I must be about my 
Father’s business ?” (or “in my Father's 
courts,” as the words are more truly trans \ 
lated). a 

The clue to this apparent divergence 
_ from the perfect manly life is given with 
rare insight and beauty in Mr. Holman 
Hunt’s great picture. At any rate the face 
and attitude of the boy there seemed for 
the first time to make clear to me the 


88 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


meaning of the recorded incident, and to 
cast a flood of light on those eighteen years 
of preparation which yet remained before 
He should be ready for his public work. 
The real meaning and scope of that work, 
in all its terrible majesty and suffering 
and grandeur, have just begun to dawn on 
the boy’s mind. The first sight of Jeru- 
salem, and of the temple, has stirred new 
and strange thoughts within Him. The re- 
plies of the doctors to his eager question- 
ings have lighted up the consciousness 
which must have been dimly working in 
Him already, that he was not altogether 
like those around Him — the children with 
whom He was accustomed to play, the 
parents at whose knees He had been 
brought up. 

Many of us must have seen, all must 
have read of, instances of a call to their 
spirits being clearly recognized by very 
young children, and coloring and molding 
their whole after lives. We can scarcely 
tay how early this awakening of a con 


CHAIST’S BOYHOOD. 35 


sciousness of what he is, of what he is 
meant to do, has come to this or that young 
child, but no one will question that it does 
so come in many instances long before the 
age of twelve. And so I think we may 
safely assume that when Christ came up for 
the first time to the feast which commemo- 
rated the great deliverance of his nation, 
the boy was already conscious of a voice 
the work to which the God of his fathers 
had in like manner called in their turn, 
Moses, and Samuel, and David, and Elijah, 
and Judas Maccabezeus, and all that grand 
roll of patriot prophets, and kings, and 
warriors, with whose names and doings He 
would be already familiar. Amidst all the 
pomp of the great festival He found the 
chosen people weighed down by a sterner 
and more degrading bondage than had be- 
fallen them in all their long annals. And 
all that He heard and saw in the holy city, 
amongst the crowds of worshippers, and 
the rabbis teaching in the temple courts — 


40 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


the first view of the holy hill of Sion, the 
joy of the whole earth—the strange con- 
trast of the eager traffic, the gross Mam- 
mon worship, the huge slaughtering of 
beasts with all the brutal accompaniments, 
with that universal longing and expecta- 
tion in those multitudes for the Messiah, 
who should lead and work out the final de- 
liverance and triumph of the people of 
God in that generation — must have stirred 
new questionings within Him, questionings 
whether that voice which He had been al- 
ready hearing in his own heart was not 
only a call, such as might come to any He- 
brew boy, but the call— whether amongst 
all that vast assembly He was not the one 
upon whom the supreme task must be laid, 
who must be the deliverer of this people, so 
certainly and eagerly looked for. 

To the young spirit before whose inward 
eye such a vision is opening all human ties 
would shrink back, and be for the moment 
torgotten. And, when recalled suddenly 
by the words of his mother, the half con 


CHRIST’S BOYHOOD. 41 


scious dreamy answer, ‘“ How is it that ye 
sought me? Wist ye not that I must be in 
my Father’s courts, about his business?” 
loses all its apparent willfulness and abrupt- 
ness. 

And s0, full of this new question and 
great wonder, He went home to the village 
in Galilee with his parents, and was sub- 
_ ject to them ; and the curtain falls for us 
on his boyhood and youth and early man 
hood. But as nothing but what is most 
important, and necessary for understanding 
all of his life which we need for our own 
growth into his likeness, is told in these 
simple gospel narratives, it would seem that 
this vivid light is thrown on that first visit 
to Jerusalem because it was the crisis in our 
Lord’s early life which bears most directly 
on his work for our race. If so, we must, 
‘ think, allow that the question once. fairly 
presented to the boy’s mind would never 
again have left it. Day by day it would 
have been coming back with increasing in- 
vistency,’gathering power and weight. And 


42 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


as He submitted it day by day to the God 
whom prophet and Psalmist had taught 
every child of the nation to look apon as 
“about his path and about his bed, and 
knowing every thought of his heart,” the 
consciousness must have gained strength 
and power. As the habit of self-surrender 
and simple obedience to the voice within 
grew more perfect, and more a part of his 
very being, the call must have sounded more 
and more clearly. 

And, as He was in all things tempted 
like as we are, again and again must his 
human nature have shrunk back and tried 
every way of escape from this task, the call 
to which was haunting Him; while every 
succeeding month and year of life must 
have disclosed to Him more and more of its 
peril and its hopelessness, as well as of its 
majesty. 

We have, then, to picture to ourselves 
tnis struggle and discipline going on for 
eighteen years — the call sounding contin: 
aaily in his ears, and the boy, the youth 


CHRIST'S BOYHOOD. 4a 


the strong man, each in turn solicited by 
the special temptations of his age, and ris- 
ing clear above them through the strength 
vf perfect obedience, the strength which 
comes from the daily fulfillment of daily du- 
ties — that “strength in the Lord” which 
St. Paul holds up to us as possible for every 
human being. Think over this long proba- 
tion, and satisfy yourselves whether it is 
easy, whether it is. possible to form any 
higher ideal of perfect manliness. . 

And without any morbid curiosity, and 
I think with profit, we may follow out the 
thoughts which this long period of quiet 
suggests. We know from the evangelists 
only this, that He remained in obscurity in 
g retired village of Galilee, and subject to 
his reputed father and mother. That He 
glso remained in great seclusion while liv- 
ing the simple peasant life of Nazareth we 
may infer from the surprise, not unmixed 
with anger and alarm, of his own family, 
when, after his baptism, He began his pub- - 
lic career amongst them. And yet, on that 


44 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


day when He rose to speak in the syna- 
gogue, it is clear that the act was one which 
commended itself in the first instance to his 
family and neighbors. The eyes of all 
present were at once fixed on Him as on 
one who might be expected to stand in the 
scribe’s place, from whom they might learn 
something, a Man who had a right to speak. 

Indeed, it is impossible to suppose that 
He could have lived in their midst from 
childhood to full manhood without attract 
ing the attention, and stirring many ques- 
tionings in the minds, of all those with 
whom He was brought into contact. The 
stories in the Apocryphal Gospels of the ex 
ercise of miraculous powers by Christ as a 
snild and boy may be wholly disregarded ; 
but we may be sure that such-a life as his, 
though lived in the utmost possible seclu- 
sion, must have impressed every one with 
whom He came in contact, from the scribe 
who taught the Scriptures in Nazareth to 
the children who sat by his side to learn, or 
met Him by chance in the vineyards or om 


CHRIST’S BOYHOOD. 40 


the hill-sides. That He was diligent in 
asing such means for study as were within 
his reach, if it needed proof, would appear 
from his perfect familiarity with the laws 
and history of his country at the opening of 
' his ministry. And the mysterious story of 
the crisis immediately following his baptism, 
in which He wrestled, as it were, face to 
face with the tempter and betrayer of man- 
kind, indicates to us the nature of the daily 
battle which He must have been waging, 
from his earliest infancy, or at any rate ever 
since his first visit to Jerusalem. No one 
can suppose for a moment that the trial 
came on Him for the first time after the 
great prophet to whom all the nation were 
flocking had owned Him as the coming 
Christ. That recognition removed, indeed, 
the last doubt from his mind, and gave Him 
the signal for which He had been patiently 
waiting, that the time was come and He 
vnust set forth from his retirement. But 
the assurance that the call would come at 
some time must have been growing on Him 


46 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


in all those years, and so when it does come 
He is perfectly prepared. 

In his first public discourse in the syne 
gogue of Nazareth we find Him at once an- 
nouncing the fulfillment of the hopes which 
all around Him were cherishing. He pro- . 
claims, without any preface or hesitation, 
with the most perfect directness and confi- 
dence, the full gospel of the kingdom of 
heaven. ‘The time is fulfilled, and the 
kingdom of God is at hand.” He takes for 
the text of his first discourse the passage in 
Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon 
me, because he hath anointed me to preach 
the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to 
heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliver- 
ance to the captive, the recovery of sight to 
the blind, to set at liberty them that are 
bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the 
Lord,” and proceeds to expound how “this 
day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” 
And within the next few days He delivers his 
Sermon on the Mount, of which we have the 
full record, and in which we find the mean 


CHRIST’S BOYHOOD. 4” 


ing, and character, and principles of the 
kingdom, laid down once and for all. Mark, 
that there is no hesitation, no ambiguity, no 
doubt as to who He is, or what message 
He has to deliver. “I have not come to de- 
stroy, but to fulfill the law which my Father 
and your Father has given you, and which 
you have misunderstood. This which I am 
now unfolding to you is the meaning of 
that law, this is the will of my Father who 
is in heaven.” 

Thus He springs at once, as it were, 
full-armed into the arena; and it is this 
thorough mastery of his own meaning and 
position from the first — this thorough in: 
sight into what He has to do, and the 
means by which it is to be done —upon 
which we should fix our thoughts if wa 
want to understand, or to get any notion at’ 
all of, what must have been the training of 
those eighteen years. 

How had this perfect insight and confi- 
dence been reached? ‘This young peas- 
ant, preaching from a boat or on a hill-side 


48 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


sweeps aside at once the traditions of out 
most learned doctors, telling us that this, 
which we and our fathers have been taught, 
is not what the God of Israel intended in 
these commandments of his; but that He, 
this young Man, can tell us what God did 
really intend. He assumes to speak to us 
as one having authority. Who gave Him 
this authority?” These, we know, are the 
kind of questionings with which Christ was 
met at once, and over and over again. And 
they are most natural and necessary ques- 
tionings, and must have occurred to Iim- 
self again and again, and been answered by 
Him to Himself, before He could have 
stood up to proclaim with the tone of abso- 
lute authority his good news to the village 
congregations in Galilee, or the crowds on 
the Mount, or by the lake. 

Who gave thee this authority? We can 
only reverentially, and at a distance, picture 
to ourselves the discipline and struggles 
by which the answer was reached, which 
enabled Him to go out without the slightest 


CHRIST’S BOYHOOD. 49 


faltering or misgiving, and deliver his full 
and astounding message, the moment the 
‘ sign came that the time had come, and that 
it was indeed He to whom the task was 
entrusted. 

But the lines of that discipline, which in 
& measure is also the discipline of every one 
of us, are clearly enough indicated for us in 
the story of the temptation. 

In every subtle form this question must i 
have been meeting the maturing Christ day 
after day. Art thou indeed the Son of God 
who is said to be coming to redeem this 
enslaved and degraded people, and with 
and beside them all the kingdoms of the 
world? Even if these prophets have not 
been dreaming and doting, art not Thou at 
least dreaming and doting? At any rate 
if that is your claim put it to some test. 
Satisfy yourself, and show us, while satisfy- 
ing yourself, some proof of your title which 
we, too, can recognize. Here are all these 
material, ‘visible things which, if your claim 
be true, must be subject to you. Show us 

4 


50 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


your power over some of them — the meam 
est if you will, the common food which 
keeps men alive. There are spiritual invisi- 
ble forces too, which are supposed to ba 
the ministers of God, and should therefore 
be under the control of his Son — give us 
some sign that you can guide or govern the 
least of them. Why pause or delay? Is 
the burden growing lighter on this people ? 
Is the Roman getting year by year less in- 
solent, the publican less fraudulent and ex- 
acting, the Pharisees and rulers less god- 
less, the people, your own kin amongst 
them, less degraded and less brutal? You 
are a grown man, with the full powers of a 
man at any rate. Why are you idling here 
when your Father’s work (if God be your 
Father) lies broadcast on every side, and 
no man standing forth to “ the help of the 
Lord against the mighty,” as our old seers 
used to rave ? 

I hope I may have been able to indicate 
to you, however imperfectly, thé line of 
thought which will enable each of you for 


CHRIST'S BOYHOOD. 51 


yourselves to follow out and realize, more or 
less, the power and manliness of the charac- 
ter of Christ implied in this patient waiting 
in obscurity and doubt through the years 
when most men are at full stretch, — wait- 
ing for the call which shall convince Him 
that the voice within has not been a lying 
voice, — and meantime making Himself all 
that God meant Him to be, without haste 
and without misgiving. ¢ 
In the time of preparation for the battle 
of life this is the true touchstone. Haste 
and distrust are the sure signs of weakness, 
if not of cowardice. Just in so far as they 
prevail in any life, even in the most heroic, 
the man fails, and his work will have to be 
done over again. In Christ’s life up to the 
age of thirty there is not the-slightest trace 
of such weakness, or cowardice. From all 
that we are told, and from all we can infer, 
‘He made no haste, and gave way to no 
doubt, waiting for God’s mind, and pa- 
tiently preparing Himself for whatever his 
work might be. And so his work from 


/ 


Vv 


02 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


. the first was perfect, and through his whoue 
public life He never faltered or wavered, 


never had to withdraw or modify a word — 


once spoken. And thus He stands, and 
will stand to the end of time, the true 


model of the courage and manliness of boy 


hood and youth and early manhood. 

Before passing on to the public life of 
Christ, there is one point which has been 
raised, and upon which perhaps a few words 
should be said, although it does not directly 
bear upon our inquiry. I refer to the su- 
pernatural power which all Christians hold 
to have dwelt in Him, and to have been 
freely exercised within certain limits during 
his public career. Was He always con- 
scious of it? And, if so, did He exercise it 
before his call and baptism? Here we gat 
not the slightest direct help from the gos- 
gel narratives, and (as has been already 
said) no reliance whatever can be placed on 
the apocryphal stories of his boyhood. We 
ere therefore left to our own judgment and 
reason, and there must always be differ 


CHRIST'S BOYHOOD. 58 


ences between the conclusions at which one 
man and another will arrive, however hon- 
estly each may search for the truth. 

To me, however, one or two matters 
seem to be clear enough. The first is, that 
He had only the same means as the rest of 
as of becoming conscious of his relation- 
ship to God.. For, if this were not so, He 
is no example for us, He was not “ temptea 
like as we are.” Now the great difference 
between one man and another depends 
upon how these means are used; and, so 
far as they are used according to the mind 
and will of God, we gain mastery over our- 
selves and our surroundings. “As the 
world was plastic and fluid in the hands of 
God, so it is ever to so much of his attri- 
butes as we bring to it,” may be a start- 
ling saying of Mr. Emerson’s, but is one 
which commends itself to our experience 
and reason, if we only consult them hon- 
estly. Let us take the most obvious exam- 
ple of this law. Look at the relations of 
man to the brute creation. One of us shall 


64 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


have no difficulty in making friends of 
beasts and birds, while another excites their 
dread and hate, so that even dogs will 
Bearcely come near him. There is no need 
to go back to the traditions of the hermits 
ia the Thebaid, or St. Francis of Assisi, 
for instances of the former class. We all 
know the story of Cowper and his three 
hares from his exquisite letters and poem, 
and most of you must have read, or heard 
of the terms on which Waterton lived with 
the birds and beasts in his Yorkshire home, 
and of Thoreau, unable to get rid of wild 
squirrels and birds who would come and 
live with him, or from a boat taking up 
fish, which lay quietly*in” his hand till he 
chose to put them back again into the 
stream. But I suppose there is scarcely 
one of us who has not himself seen such in- 
stances again and again, persons of whom 
the old words seemed literally true, “ At 
destruction and famine thou shalt laugh 
neither shalt thou be afraid of the beasts of 
the earth. For thou shalt be in league 


CHRIST'S BOYHOOD. 55 


with the stones of the field, and the beasts 
pf the field shall be at peace with thee.” 

I remember myself several such ; a boy 
who was friends even with rats, stoats, and 
snakes, and generally had one or other of 
them in his pockets; a groom upon whose 
shoulders the pigeons used to settle, and 
nestle against his cheeks, whenever he went 
out into the stable-yard or field. Is there 
any reasonable way of accounting for this ? 
Only one, I think, which is, that those who 
have this power over, and attraction for, 
animals, have always felt towards them and 
treated them as their Maker intended — 
have unconsciously, perhaps, but still faith- 
fully, followed God’s mind in their dealings 
with his creatures, and so have stood in 
true relations to them all, and have found 
the beasts of the field at peace with them. 

In the same way the stones of the field 
are in league with the geologist, the trees 
and flowers with the botanist, the compo- 
nent parts of earth and air with the chem- 
wt, just in so far as each, consciously or un- 


66 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


. consciously, follows God’s methods with 
them — each part of his creation yielding 
up its secrets and its treasures to the open 
mind of the humble and patient, who is 
also at bottom always the most courageous, 
learner. 

And what is true of each of us beyond 
all question — what every man who walks 
with open eyes, and open heart, knows to 
be true of himself — must be true also of 
Christ. And so, though we may reject the 
stories of the clay birds, which He modeled 
as a child, taking wing and bursting into 
song round Him (as on a par with St. 
Francis’s address to his sisters the swallows 
at Alvia, or the flocks in the Marches of 
Venice, who thereupon kept silence from 
their twitterings and songs till his sermon 
was finished), we cannot doubt that in pro- 
portion as Christ was more perfectly in 
sympathy with God’s creation than any 
medieval saint, or modern naturalist, or 
man of science, He had more power than 
they with all created things from his earli 


CHRIST’S BOYHOOD. 5 


est youth. Nor could it be otherwise with 
the hearts and wills of men. Over these 
ve know that, from that time to this, He 
nas exercised a supreme sway, infinitely 
more wonderful than that over birds and 
beasts, because of man’s power of resistance 
to the will Christ came to teach and to do, 
which exists, so far as we can see, in no 
other part of creation. 

I think, then, it is impossible to resist 
the conclusion that He must have had all 
these powers from his childhood, that they 
must have been growing stronger from day 
to day, and He, at the same time, more and 
more conscious of possessing them, not to 
use on any impulse of curiosity or self-will, 
but only as the voice within prompted. 
And it seems the most convincing testi- 
mony to his perfect sonship, manifested in 
perfect obedience, that He should never 
have tested his powers during those thirty 
years as He did at once and with perfect 
confidence as soon as the call came. Had 
He done so his ministry must have com 


68 THe MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


menced sooner ; that is to say, before the 
method was matured by which He was to 
reconstruct, and lift into a new atmosphere 
and on to a higher plane, the faith and life 
of his own nation and of the whole world. 
For it is impossible to suppose that the 
works which He did, and the words He 
spoke, at thirty — which at once threw 
all Galilee and Judza into a ferment of 
hope and joy and doubt and anger — 
should have passed unnoticed had they been 
wrought and spoken when He was twenty. 
Here, as in all else, He waited for God’s 
mind: and so, when the time for action 
came, worked with the power of God. And 


this waiting and preparation must haye 


been the supreme trial of his faith. The 
holding this position must have been in 
those early years the holding of the very 
centre of the citadel of Man’s soul (as 
Bunyan so quaintly terms it), against which 
the assaults of the tempter must have beer 
delivered again and again while the gar 
figon was in training for the victorioug 


pm A 


CHRIST'S BOYHOOD 59 


march out into the open field of the great 
world, carrying forth the standard which 
shall never go back. 

And while it may be readily admitted 
that Christ wielded a dominion over all 
ereated things, as well as over man, which 
no other human being has ever approached, 
it seems to me to be going quite beyond 
what can be proved, or even fairly assumed, 
to speak of his miracles as supernatural, in 
the sense that no man has ever done, or can 
ever do, the like. The evidence is surely 
all the other way, and seems rather to indi- 
cate that if we could only have lived up to 
the standard which we acknowledge in our 
inmost hearts to be the true one, — could 
only have obeyed every motion and warning 
of the voice of God speaking in our hearts 
from the day when we first became con- 
scious of and could hear it, — if, in other 
words, our wills had from the first been dis- 
tiplined, like the will of Christ, so as to be 
m perfect accord with the will of God, — 1 
yee no reason to doubt that we, too, should 


60 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 
have gained the power and the courage to 
show signs, or, if you please, to work mir- 
acles, as Christ and his Apostles worked 
them. 


PART IV. 
THE CALL OF CHRIST. 


4Sound, thou trumpet of God! come forth, great cause, te 
array us! 
King and leader, appear! thy soldiers sorrowing seek thee.” 
A. CLovea. 
AT last the good news for which they 
had been longing comes to the expecting 
nation. A voice is heard in the lonely 
tracts beyond Jordan —the route along 
which the caravans of pilgrims from Gali- 
lee passed so often, to and from the feasts 
at Jerusalem — proclaiming that the king- 
dom of heaven is at hand. The news is 
soon carried to the capital, and from Jeru- 
salem and all Judza, and all the region 
round about Jordan, the people go out to 
hear it; and, when they have heard it, are 
baptized in crowds, eagerly claiming each 
for himself a place in this kingdom. It 
gathers strength till it moves rulers and 


62 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


priests, council and Sanhedrim, as well as 
the people who know not the law; and pres- 
ently priests and Levites are sent out from 
Jerusalem to test messenger and message, 
and ask, “* Who art thou? What kingdom 
is this thou art proclaiming without our 
sanction?” It spreads northward also, 
and the despised Galileans from lake shore 
and half pagan cities flock down t> hear it 
for themselves, and the simplest and brav- 
est souls amongst them, such as Andrew 
and Simon Peter, to attach themselves to 
the preacher. From the highways and 
lake cities it pierces the Galilean valleys, 
and comes to the ears of Jesus, in the car- 
penter’s cottage at Nazareth. 

He, too, is moved by the call, and starts 
for the Jordan, filled, we may be sure, with 
the hope that the time for action has come 
at last, that the God of Israel is again 
about to send deliverance to his people. 
May we not also fairly conjecture that, on 
his way to Bethabara, to claim his place in 
‘he national confession and uprising, He 


THE CALL OF CHRIST. 63 


must have had moments of rejoicing that 
the chief part in the great drama seemed 
likely after all to be laid on another? As_ 
a rule, the more thoroughly disciplined and 
fit a man may be for any really great work, 
the ‘more conscious will he be of his own 
unfitness for it, the more distrustful of him- 
self, the more anxious not to thrust himself 
forward. It is only the zeal of the half-in- 
structed when the hour of a great deliver- 
ance has come at last — of those who have 
had a glimpse of the glory of the goal, but 
have never known or counted the perils of 
the path which leads to it — which is ready 
with the prompt response, ‘“‘ Yes — we can 
drink of the cup; we can be baptized with 
the baptism.” 

But in Christ, after the discipline of 
those long waiting years, there was no am- 
bition, no self-delusion. He had measured 
the way, and counted the cost, of lifting his 
own people and the world out of bondage 
to visible things and false gods, and bring: 
ing them to the only Father of their spirits, 


64 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


into the true kingdom of their God. He 
must, indeed, have been well enough aware 
how infinitely more fit for the task He 
Himself was than any of his own brethren 
in the flesh, with whom He was living day 
by day, or of the men of Nazareth with 
whom He had been brought up. But He 
knew also that the same voice which had 
been speaking to him, the same wisdom 
which had been training him, must have 
been speaking to and training other humble 
and brave souls, wherever there were open 
hearts and ears, in the whole Jewish na- 
tion. As the humblest and most guileless 
of men He could not have assumed that no 
other Israelite had been able to render that 
perfect obedience of which He was Himself 
conscious. And so He may well have hur- 
ried to the Jordan in the hope of finding 
there, in this prophet of the wilderness, 
‘¢ Him who should come,” the Messiah, the 
great deliverer — and of enlisting under his 
banner, and rendering Him true and loya. 
service, in the belief that, after all, He 


THE CALL OF CHRIST. 65 


Himself might only be intended to aid, and 
hold up the hands of a greater than Him- 
self. For, we must remember that Christ 
could not have heard before He came to 
Bethabara that John had disclaimed the 
great title. It was not till the very day 
before his own arrival that the Baptist had 
told the questioners from Jerusalem, “I am 
not He.” 

But if any such thought had crossed his 
mind, or hope filled his heart, on the way 
to the Baptist, it was soon dispelled, and 
He, left again in his own loneliness, now 
more clearly than ever before, face to face 
with the task, before which even the Son of 
God, appointed to it before the world was, 
might well quail, as it confronted Him in 
his frail human body. For John recognizes 
Him, singles Him out at once, proclaims to 
the bystanders, “ This is He! Behold the 
Lamb of God! This is He who shall bap- 
tize with the fire of God’s own Spirit. 
Here is the deliverer whom all our prophets 


uave foretold. And by a mysterious out. 
ar 


66 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


ward sign, as well as by the witness in his 
own heart and conscience, Christ is at once 
assured of the truth of the Baptist’s words 
— that it is indeed He Himself and no 
other, and that his time has surely come. 
That He now thoroughly realized the 
fact for the first time, and was startled and 
severely tried by the confirmation of what 
He must have felt for years to be probable, 
is not only what we should look for from 
our own experiences, but seems the true 
inference from the gospel narratives. For, 
although as soon as the full truth breaks 
‘upon Him He accepts the mission and work 
to which God is calling Him, and speaks 
with authority to the Baptist, “ Suffer it to 
be so now,” yet the immediate effect of the 
eall is to drive Him away into the wilder 
ness, there in the deepest solitude to think 
over once again, and for the last time to 
wrestle with and master, the tremendous 
disclosure. And the story of the tempta- 
tion which immediately follows — so full of 
mystery and difficulty in many ways — ig 


THE CALL OF CHRIST. 67 


invaluable for the light which it casts, not 
only on this crisis of his life, but before and 
after —on the history of the world’s re- 
demption, and the method by which that 
redemption is to be accomplished, the part 
which each individual man and woman is 
» ealled to play in it. 

For Christ’s whole life on earth was the. 
assertion and example of true manliness — 
the setting forth in living act and word what 
man is meant to be, and how he should 
earry himself in this world of God’s, — one 
long campaign, in which “the temptation ” 
stands out as the first great battle and vic- 
tory. The story has depths in it which we 
ean never fathom, but also clear, sharp les- 
sons which he who runs may read, and no 
man can master too thoroughly. We must 
follow Him reverently into the wilderness, 
where He flies from the crowds who are 
pressing to the Baptist, and who to-morrow 
will be thronging around Him, if He goes 
back amongst them, after what the Baptist 
has said about Him to-day. 


68 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


Day after day in the wilderness the strug- 
gle goes on in his heart. He is faint from 
insufficient food in those solitudes, and with 
bodily weakness the doubts grow in strength 
and persistence, and the tempter is always 
at his side, soliciting Him to end them once 
for all, by one act of self-assertion. All 
those questionings and misgivings as to his 
origin and mission which we have pictured 
to ourselves as haunting Him ever since his 


first visit to J. erusalem, are now, as it were, 


focussed. There are mocking voices whis- 
pering again as of old, but more scornfully 
and keenly, in his ear, “ Are you really the 
Messiah, the Son of God, so long looked 
for? What more proof have you to go upon 
than you have had for these many years, 
during which you have been living as a poor 
peasant in a Galilean village? The word 
cf this wild man of the wilderness? He is 
your own cousin, and a powerful preacher, 
no doubt, but a wayward, willful man, clad 
and fed like a madman, who has been nurs 
‘ng mad fancies from his boyhood, away 


ae 


THE CALL OF CHRIST. 69 


from the holy city, the centre of national 
life and learning. This sign of a descend- 
ing dove, and a voice which no one has 
heard but yourself? Such signs come to 
many,—are never wanting when men are 
ready to deceive themselves, — and each 
man’s fancy gives them a different mean- 
ing. But the words, and the sign, and the 
voice, you say, only meet a conviction which 
has been growing these thirty years in your 
own heart and conscience? Well, then, at 
least for the sake of others if not for your 
own sake, put this conviction to the proof, 
here, at once, and make sure yourself, be- 
fore you go forth and deceive poor men, 
your brethren, to their ruin. You are fam- 
ishing here in the wilderness. This, at 
least, cannot be what God intends for his 
Son, who is to redeem the world. Exercise 
some control over the meanest part of your 
Father's kingdom. Command these stones 
to become bread, and see whether they will 
obey you. Cast yourself down from this 
height. If you are what you think, your 


70 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


Father’s angels will bear you up. Then, 
after they have borne you up, you may go 
on with some reasonable assurance that your 
claim is not a mere delusion, and that you 
will not be leading these poor men whom 
you call your brethren to misery and de- 
struction.” 

And when neither long fasting and weak- 
ness, or natural doubt, distrust, impatience, 
or the most subtle suggestions of the tempt- 
er, can move his simple trust in his Father, 
or wring from Him one act of self-assertion, 
the enemy changes front and the assault 

‘comes from another quarter. “ You may be 
right,” the voices seem now to be saying ; 
“you may not be deceived, or dreaming, 
when you claim to be the Son of God, sent 
to redeem this fair world, which is now 
spread out before you in all its glory. That 
may be your origin, and that your work. 
But, living as you have done till now ina 
remote corner of a despised province, you 
have no experience or knowledge of the 
methods or powers which sway men, and 





THE CALL OF CHRIST. 71 


establish and maintain these kingdoms of 
the world, the glory of which you are be- 
holding. These methods and powers have 
been in use in your Father’s world, if it be 
his, ever since man has known good from 
evil. You have only to say the word, and 
you may use and control these methods and 
powers as you please. By their aid you 
may possibly ‘see of the travail of your 
soul and be satisfied ;’ without them you 
will redeem nothing but perhaps a man 
here and there— without them you will 
postpone instead of hastening the coming of 
your Father’s kingdom, to. the sorrow and 
ruin of many generations, and will die a 
foiled and lonely man, crushed by the very 
forces you have refused to use for your 
Father’s service. If they were wholly evil, 
wholly unfit for the fulfillment of any pur. 
pose of his, would He have left them in 
command of his world till this day? It is 
only through them that the world can be 
subdued. Your time is short, and you have 
already wasted much of it, standing shiver- 


12 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


ing on the brink, and letting the years slip 
by in that cottage at Nazareth. The wisest 
f your ancestors acknowledged and used 
them, and spread his kingdom from the 
river to the Great Sea. Why should you 
reject them ?” 

This, very roughly and inadequately 
stated, is some shadow of the utmost part 
or skirt, as it were, of the trial-crisis, last- 
ing forty days, through which Christ passed 
from his private to his public career. For 
forty days the struggle lasted before He 
could finally realize and accept his mission 
“with all that it implied. At the end of 
that time He has fairly mastered and beaten 
down every doubt as to his call, every 
tempting suggestion to assert Himself, or to 
accept or use any aid in establishing his 
Father’s kingdom which does not clearly 
bear his Father’s stamp and seal on the 
face of it. In the strength of this victory 
He returns from the desert, to take up the 
burden which has been laid on Him, and 


to set up God's kingdom in the world by 


> ah = 
a eee 


THE CALL OF CHRIST. | 73 


the methods which He has learned of God 
Himself — and by no other. 
Thus 1n following the life of Christ up to 
this point, so far as we have any materials, 
we have found its main characteristic to be 
patience — a resolute waiting on God’s 
mind. I have asked you to test in every 
way you can, whether this kind of patience 
does not constitute the highest ideal we can 
form of human conduct, is not in fact the 
noblest type of true manliness. Pursue 
the same method as to this isolated section 
of that life, the temptation, which I readily 
admit has much in it that we cannot un- 
derstand. But take the story simply as 
you find it (which is the only honest 
method, unless you pass it by altogether, 
which would be cowardly) and see whether 
you can detect any weakness, any flaw, in 
the perfect manliness of Christ under the 
strain of which it speaks— whether He 
does not here also realize for us the most 
perfect type of manliness in times of soli- 
tary and critical triai. Spare uo pains, sup 


14 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


press no doubt, only be honest with the 
story, and with your own consciences. 
There is scarcely any life of first-rate im- 
portance to the world in which we do not 
find a crisis corresponding to this, but the — 
nearest parallel must be sought amongst 
those men, the greatest of their kind, who 
have founded or recast one of the great re- 
ligions of the world. Of these (if we ex- 
cept the greatest of all, Moses) Mohammed 
is the only one >f whose call we know 
enough to speak. Whatever we may think 
of him and the religion he founded, we 
shall all probably admit that he was at any 
rate a man of the rarest courage. In his 
case, too, it is only at the end of long and 
solitary vigils in the desert that the vision 
comes which seals him for his work. The 
silver roll is unfolded before his eyes, and 
he who holds it bids him read therein the 
decrees of God, and tells him, “ Thou art 
the prophet of God, and I his angel.” 

He is unmanned by the vision, and flies 
trembling to his wife, whose brave and 


THE CALL OF CHRIST. 75 


loving counsel, and those of his friends 
and first disciples, scarcely keep him from 
despair and suicide. 

I would not press the parallel further 
than to remark that Christ came out of the 
temptation with no human aid, having trod 
the wine-press alone, serene and resolute 
from that moment for the work to which 
God had called Him. 

Tt remains to follow his life in action, 
and to scrutinize its special characteristics 
there. And again I would ask you to sift 
every step thoroughly for yourselves, and 
see whether it will not bear the supreme 
crucial test from first to last. Apply that 
test, therefore, without scruple or limitation 
in respect of this special quality of manli- 
ness, from which we started on our inquiry. 
I have admitted, and admit again, frankly 
and at once, that if the life will not stand 
the test throughout, in every separate ac- 
sion and detail, the Christian hypothesis 
sreaks down. For we may make allow- 
snces for the noblest and bravest men, for 


76 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


Moses and Elijah and St. Paul, for Soe- 
rates and Luther and Mohammed, and 
every other great prophet, but we can 
make none for the perfect Son of ‘man and 
Son of God. His life must stand the test 
nnder all circumstances, and at every mo- 
ment, or the ground breaks through under 
our feet, and God has not revealed Himself 
in man to men, or redeemed the world by 
the methods in which Christendom has be 
lieved for nineteen hundred years. 





PART V. 
OHRIST’S MINISTRY. ACT L 


‘6 This perfect man, by merit called my son, 
To earn salvation for the sons of men.” 
Minton, Paradise Regained, Book £. 
. Iv will be necessary for our purpose to 
follow in outline the events of our Lord’s 
ministry as a consecutive narrative. If I 
do so without calling your attention to the 
endless difficulties and questions which have 
been fairly raised as to the occurrence and 
sequence of many of those events, it is not 
because I wish to ignore them myself, or to 
lead you away from the examination of 
them. In our time, which is, perhaps, be- 
fore all things an age of criticism, much 
has been done towards the creation of a 
science of history, and therefore of a science 
of religion, which is the highest part of his 
sory. We have discovered, or at any rate 


78 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


have done much to perfect, the use of new 
and searching methods of investigation, and 
have applied, and are applying, these to 
every department of human knowledge and 
human life. 

It was not to be expected, or indeed to 
be wished, that the new criticism should 
pause before that history, or the books con- 
taining it, which our forefathers held too 
sacred to be looked upon or treated as or- 
dinary history. It has not paused, and, 
while respecting our fathers’ reverent feel- 
_ ing for the books which have done so much 
for our nation and for the world, we may 
rejoice that it has not; and that friend and 
foe in this generation have been alike busy 
in turning all the light which recent re- 
search has placed within their reach upon 
the story of our Lord’s ministry, and the 
gospel narratives in which it is contained. 

We English were in danger of idolatry 
in this matter, — of putting the Book in the 
place of Him of whom it testifies, — and it 
is well for us that we have been shaken 





CHRIST’S MINISTRY. ACT I. 79 


nowever roughly, out of a habit which fos- 
tered unreality in the very centre of our 
lives. We were inclined to claim for 
Christ’s religion, and for its evidences, im- 
munities which neither He nor his apostles 
ever claimed. That position has been 
abandoned, and the best representatives of 
every school of religious thought amongst 
us (so far as I am aware) now challenge 
the freest inquiry, and lend their own aid 
in carrying it on. And amongst the first, 
and not least formidable, difficulties which 
have met Christian writers has been that 
of harmonizing the writings of the four 
evangelists so as to make the several nar- 
ratives fit into one continuous whole. 

Whether it is possible that this can ever 
be done completely, in the absence of the 
discovery of new evidence, which there is 
no reason to look for, seems to be very 
doubtful. At any rate it has not been ac- 
zomplished hitherto. But the general out- 
line comes out clearly enough, and this is 
all we need in order to pursue our own par- 
sicular inquiry satisfactorily. 


oe 
Vil 
80 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. : 


Turning, then, to the point at which we 
have arrived, we shall find ourselves at o once 
- met by questions of detail as to our Lord’s 
return from the wilderness after er his tempta 
tion, Whether He returned to the scene 
of John’s baptism, on the Jordan, and re- 
mained there for some days, or went 
straight back into Galilee from the desert , 
whether He commenced his active ministry 
at once, or even yet postponed it until 
John had been put in prison — are ques- 
tions about which there is as yet no general 
concurrence of opinion. 
~ You may each of you judge for your- 
selves of the difficulties by comparing the 
passages in the four gospels which relate to 
this period. 

Taking this warning with us, we need 
trouble no further about the harmonies, In- 
deed, for our purpose, they are of very little 
consequence, for, take the narrative how we 
will, it divides itself beyond all question 
into several distinct and clearly marked 
periods. The first of these is that between 





CHRIST’S MINISTRY. ACT I. 81 


the temptation and the formal opening of 
Christ’s ministry in Galilee, marked by his 
first great discourse at Nazareth, the aban- 
donment of his home, and the selection of 
the five first Apostles for special and con- 
tinuous service. This first period extends 
at most over a few months, or more proba- 
bly weeks, beginning a few days before the 
feast of the Passover, and ending in the 
early summer ; at the time, not (so far as I 
am aware) exactly ascertained, when Herod 
Antipas seized John the Baptist and put 
him in prison. We must run through it 
shortly, noting the principal events, and 
then applying our test to such of them as 
seem to come within the scope of our in- 
quiry. 

The temptation over, Christ appears to 
have returned by Bethabara on his way to 
his Galilean home. The crowds were still 
pressing to John’s baptism, and a group 
of the most earnest amongst them had al- 
ready gathered round the Baptist, and were 


attaching themselves to his person, as the 
6 


#2 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


sons of the prophets round Elisha, the 
Apostles round Christ Himself, the com- 
panions of Medina round Mohammed. 

To two of these disciples John points out 
Christ as that Son of God, of whom he was 
sent to bear record. They follow Him, 
spend a few hours of the afternoon with 
Him, and recognize Him as the Messiah. 
One of them, Andrew, brings his brother 
Simon Peter to Christ. He Himself calls 
Philip, who in his turn brings his friend 
Nathanael. With these five Christ starts 
for his home in Galilee. 

These earliest followers, we may note, 
are almost certainly of the twelve Apostles, 
As to Andrew, Simon Peter, and Philip, 
who are expressly named, there is no ques 
tion ; and there is good reason to believe 
that the companion of Andrew, whose 
name is not given, was John, the son of 
Zebedee, and that Nathanael was the 
Apostle Bartholomew, whose name is con 
stantly coupled in the gospels with that of 
Philip. Nathanael was of Cana of Galilee 


tied 





CHRIST'S MINISTRY. ACT I. 83 


of what trade we do not know; the other 
four were of Bethsaida, a suburb of Caper- 
naum, fishermen on the Sea of Galilee. 

They accompany Christ to Cana, Na- 
thanael’s home, where they meet Christ’s 
mother, and are present at the marriage 
feast, at which his first miracle is wrought. 
From thence they follow him to Caper- 
naum, and some of them go on with Him 
to Jerusalem to the Passover, at which He 
drives out the cattle-dealers from the outer 
court of the temple, and overthrows the 
tables of the money-changers. 

This act fixes the attention of all Jeru- 
salem upon Him, and brings Him at once 
under the notice of the Sanhedrim. One of 
its members, a Pharisee, seeks an interview 
with Him by night. He commits Himself 
neither to the mob nor to the nobleman. 
After the feast He remains for some time 
in the northern part of Judza, where his 
fame attracts followers, whom his disciples 
baptize. He then passes through Samaria, 
still attended by his followers, stopping 


84 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


some days in the city of that name, and 
preaching there. They then go into Gali- 
lee, and, while the disciples apparently 
separate for the time to their own homes 
and pursuits, He returns to Nazareth, to 
begin his formal ministry amongst those 
who had known Him from his childhood. 
They turn upon Him in the middle of his 
first discourse, and attempt to murder Him. 
He leaves his old home for the neighboring 
village of Cana, where He is found by the 
ruler whose son is sick at Capernaum. He 
heals the child, and follows the father to 
_ that city, where He hears of the imprison- 
ment of the Baptist, and at once enters on 
the second stage of his public career. 

And now, following the narrative step 
by step so far, see if you can find any trace 
in it of a failure of courage, even for a mo- 
ment. In the first place you will find, gen- 
trally, that there is no wavering or hesita- 
tion at any point. The time for these is 
past, and, the call once recognized and ace 
vepted there is no shrinking or looking 





CHRIST'S MINISTRY. ACT I. 85 


round, or going back. The strain and bur- 
den of a great message of deliverance to 
men has again and again found the weak 
places in the faith and courage of the most 
devoted and heroic of those to whom it has 
been entrusted. Moses pleads under its 
pressure that another may be sent in his 
place, asking despairingly, ‘* Why hast 
Thou sent me?” Elijah prays for death. 
Mohammed passes years of despondency 
and hesitation under the sneers of those 
who scoff, “ There goeth the son of Abdal- 
lah, who hath his converse with God!” 
Such shrinkings and doubtings enlist our 
sympathy, make us feel the tie of a com- 
mon humanity which binds us to such men. 
But no one, I suppose, will maintain that 
perfect manliness would not suppress, at 
any rate, the open expression of any such 
feelings. The man who has to lead a great 
revolution should keep all misgivings to 
bimself, and the weight of them so kept 
must often prove the sorest part of his bur- 
den. 


86 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


But let us pass on to the particular 
events of this period. As to many of them 
the question of whether they are courage- 
ous or not, perhaps does not arise, except 
in so far as it arises on every act in our 
lives, each of which may, and indeed must, 
be done either manfully with perfect direct 
ness, or unmanfully with more or less adroit 
ness. The man whose yea is yea and his 
nay nay, is, we all confess, the most cou- 
rageous, whether or no he may be the most 
successful in daily life. And He who gave 
the precept has left us the most perfec? 
example of how to live up to it. And thir 
quality you will find shines out at once 
in these early conversations with Nathan 
ael, Nicodemus, and the woman of Samaria, 
‘as much as in the discourses of his later 
years. 

Before considering them we may glance 
at the purification of the temple, an act 
which at any rate should satisfy those whe 
think courage best proved by physical dar. 
ing. At this time, we must remember, Ha 


CHRIST’S MINISTRY. ACT I. 87 


- had no following, such as the crowd that 
‘ swept after him on Palm Sunday, three 
years later, into the temple courts. But, 
leaving the act to speak for itself, look at 
the rare courage of the speech by which - 
that act is justified when it is challenged. 
He, not even a Levite, a mere peasant from 
a despised province, had presumed to exer- 
cise authority in the very temple precincts ! 
Jerusalem was full of worse idolatries, but 
the idolatry of the temple buildings was, 
perhaps, the strongest. The Jews seem to 
have regarded them as Christians have some- 
times regarded the visible Church, or the 
Bible —as an object of worship; to have 
thought that if they perished God Himself 
would perish. And so Christ’s answer goes 
straight to the root of their idolatry. His 
words were not understood by the crowd, 
or even by his own disciples, in their full 
meaning —that his body, and the body of 
-every man, is the true temple of God. But 
they understood enough of them to see that 
He had no superstition about these splendid 


88 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


buildings of theirs, and was trying to lift 
them above local and national prejudices, 
and those who would not be lifted brooded 
over them till their day of vengeance came. 

But there were those on whom the daring 
acts and words of Christ were already tak- 
ing hold. Many of those who had come up 
to the Passover believed in Him, some even 
amongst the rulers. One of these we hear 
more of at once. 

Nicodemus, we must remember, was a 
leading member of the Sanhedrim, a repre- 
sentative of that section of the rulers who, 
like the rest of the nation, were expecting a 
deliverer, a king who should prevail against 
the Cxsar. They had sent to the Baptist, 
and had heard of his testimony to this 
young Galilean, who had now come to Je 
rusalem, and was showing signs of a power 
which they could not but acknowledge. For, 
had He not cleansed the temple, which they 
had never been able to do, but, notwith- 
standing their pretended reverence for it, 
bad allowed to be turned into a shambles 


CHRIST’S MINISTRY. ACT I. 89 


and an exchange? They saw that a part 
of the people were ready to gather to Him, 
but that He had refused to commit Himself 
to them. This, then, the best of them must 
have felt, was no mere leader of a low, fierce, 
popular party or faction. Nicodemus at 
any rate was evidently inclined to doubt 
whether He might not prove to be the king 
they were looking for, as the Baptist had 
declared. The doubt must be solved, and 
he would see for himself. 

And so he comes to Christ, and hears di- 
rectly from Him, that He has indeed come 
to set up a kingdom, but that it is no visi- 
ble kingdom like the Czsar’s, but a king- 
dom over men’s spirits, one which rulers as 
well as peasants must become new men be- 
fore they can enter — that a light has come 
into the world, and “he that doeth cruth 
cometh to that light.” 

From beginning to end there is no word 
to catch this ruler or those he represented ; 
no balancing of phrases or playing with 
plausible religious shibboleths, with which 


50. THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


Nicodemus would be familiar, and which 
might please, and, perchance, reconcile, this 
well-disposed ruler, and the powerful per- 
sons he represented. There is, depend upon 
it, no severer test of manliness than our be 
havior to powerful persons, whose aid would 
advance the cause we have at heart. We 
know from the later records that the inter- © 
view of that night, and the strange words 
he had heard at it, made a deep impression 
on this ruler. His manliness, however, 
breaks down for the present. He shrinks 
back and disappears, leaving the strange 
young peasant to go on his way. 

The same splendid directness and incisive- 
ness characterize his teaching at Samaria. 
There, again, He attacks at once the most 
cherished local traditions, showing that the 
place of worship matters nothing, the ob- 
ject of worship everything. That object is 
a Father of men’s spirits, who wills that all 
men shall know and worship Him, but who 
can only be worshipped in spirit and in 
truth. He, the peasant who is talking te 





CHRIST’S MINISTRY. ACT If. 91 


them, is Himself the Messiah, who has come 
from this Father of them and Him, to give 
them this spirit of truth in their own hearts. 

The Jews at Jerusalem had been clamor- 
ing round Him for signs of his claim to 
speak such words, and in the next few days 
his own people would be crying out for his 
blood when they heard them. These Sa- 
maritans make no such demand, but hear 
and recognize the message and the messen- 
ger. The seed is sown, and He passes on 
never to return and garner the harvest; 
deliberately preferring the hard, priest-rid- 
den lake cities of the Jews as the centre of 
his ministry. He will leave ripe fields for 
others'to reap. This decision, interpret it 
as we will, is that of no soft or timid re 
former. Take this test again and compare 
Christ’s choice of his first field for work 
with that of any other great leader of men. 

This first period fitly closes with the 
scene at Nazareth. Here He returns, while 
the reports of his doings at the feast at 
Jerusalem are fresh in the minds of his 


92 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


family and fellow-townsmen. They are ex 
cited and divided as to Him and his do- 
ings. A thousand reasons would occur for 


speaking soft things, at such a moment, for. 


accommodating His teaching, here at any 
rate, to the wants and tastes of his hearers, 
so as to keep a safe and friendly asylum at 
Nazareth, amongst the scenes and people 
He had loved from childhood. It is clear 
‘that some of his family, if not his mother 
herself, were already seriously alarmed and 
displeased. They disliked what they had 
heard of His teaching at Jerusalem and on 
His way home, which they felt must bring 
Him to ruin, in which they might be in- 
volved. He must have seen and conversed 
with them in his own home before that 
scene in the synagogue, and have had then 
to endure the bitter pain of alienating those 
whom He loved and respected, and had 
reason to love and respect, but who could 
not for the time rise out of the conyen- 
tional, respectable way of looking at things 

To stand by what our conscience wit 


: 
: 
| 
: 
: 








CHRIST'S MINISTRY. -ACT I. 93 


nesses for as truth, through evil and good 
report, even against all opposition of those 
we love, and of those whose judgment we 
look up to and should ordinarily prefer to 
follow ; to cut ourselves deliberately off 
from their love and sympathy and respect, 
is surely, I repeat, one of the most severe 
trials to which we can be put. A man has 
need to feel at such times that the Spirit of 
the Lord is upon him in some measure, as 
it was upon Christ when He rose in the 
synagogue of Nazareth and, selecting the 
passage of Isaiah which speaks most di- 
rectly of the Messiah, claimed that title for 
Himself, and told them that to-day this 
prophecy was fulfilled in Him. 

The fierce, hard, Jewish spirit is at once 
roused to fury. They would kill Him then 
and there, and so settle his claims, once 
for all. He passes through them, and away 
from the quiet home where He had _ been 
brought up — alone, it would seem, so far 
as man could make Him so, and homeless 
for the remainder of his life. Yet not 


b4 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


alone, for his Father is with Him; not 
homeless, for He has the only home of 
which man can be sure, the home of his 
own heart shared with the Spirit of God. 


PART VI. 


CHRIST’S MINISTRY. ACT IL 


‘¢ What is it that ye came to note ? 
A young man preaching from a boat.” 
A. CLouaH. 

aE second period of our Lord’s minis- 
try is one, in the main, of joyful progress 
and triumph, in which the test of true man- 
liness must be more subtle than when the 
surroundings are hostile. It consists, I 
think, at such times in the careful watch- 
fulness not to give wrong impressions, not 
to mislead those who are touched by en 
thusiasm, conscious of new life, grateful %o 
Him who has kindled that life in them. 

It is then that the temptation to be all 
things to all men in a wrong sense— to 
adapt and accommodate teaching and life 
to a lower standard in order to maintain a 
hold upon the masses of average men and 
women who have been moved by the words 


96 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


of lips touched by fire from the altar of 
God, — has generally proved too much for 
the best and strongest of the world’s great 
reformers. It is scarcely necessary to labor 
this point, which would, I think, be sorrow- 
fully admitted by those who have studied 
most lovingly and ‘carefully the lives of 
such men, for instance, as Sayonarola or 
Wesley. If you will refer to a recent and 
valuable work on the life of a greater 
than either of these, Mr. Bosworth Smith’s 
**Mohammed and Mohammedanism,” you 
will find there perhaps the best illustration 
which I can give you of this sad experience. 

When Mohammed returns from Medina, 
sweeping at last all enemies out of his path, 
as the prophet of a new faith, and the 
leader of an awakened and repentant peo- 
ple, his biographer pauses to notice the 
lowering of the standard, both in his life 
und teaching. Power, he pleads, brings 
with it new temptations and new failures 
The more thoroughly a man is carried away 
by his inspiration, and convinced of the 








CHRIST’S MINISTRY. ACT II. 97 


truth and goodness of his cause and his 
message, the more likely is he to forget the 
means in the end, and to allow the end to 
justify whatever means seem to lead to its 
triumph. He must maintain as he can, and 
by any means, his power over the motley 
mass of followers that his mission has 
gathered round him, and will be apt to aim 
rather at what will hold them than at what 
will satisfy the highest promptings of his 
Own conscience. ' 

We may allow the plea in such cases, 
though with sorrow and humiliation. But 
the more minutely we examine the life of 
Christ the more we shall feel that here, 
again, there is no place for it. We shall 
be impressed with the entire absence of any 
such bending to expediency, or forgetting 
the means in the end. He never for one 
moment accommodates his life or teaching 
to any standard but the highest: never 
lowers or relaxes that standard by a shade 
sr a hair’s-breadth, to make the road easy 
to rich or powerful questioners, or to uphold 


7 


98 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


the spirit of his poorer followers when they 
are startled and uneasy, as they begin half- 
blindly to recognize what spirit they are of. 
This unbending truthfulness is, then, what 
we have chiefly to look for in this period of 
triumphant progress and success, question- 
ing each act and word in turn whether 
there is any swerving in it from the highest 
ideal. 

It is not easy to mark off distinctly the 
time over which it extends, but it seems to 
me to commence with his return to Caper- 
naum, after the healing of the centurion’s 
son, when He hears of the imprisonment 
of John, and to end with the estrangement 
of many of his followers at his teaching as 
to the bread of life, and the nearly con- 
temporaneous and final and open rupture 
with, and defiance of, the chief priests and 
scribes and Pharisees, when they change 
from suspicious and watchful critics into 
open and avowed enemies, baffled for the 
moment, but dogging his footsteps and 
thirsting for his blood. 


z 


CHRIST’S MINISTRY. ACT II. 99 


It is upon his relations with these scribes 
and Pharisees more particularly that we 
must keep our attention fixed, as it is here, 
if anywhere, that we may look for a failure 
of nerve and truthfulness, and therefore of 
manliness. 

We must gather our connected view of 
this period from all the narratives, and shall 
find the beginning most clearly indicated in 
St. Matthew, in the last part of the fourth 
chapter, where He recalls to his side Peter 
and Andrew and the sons of Zebedee — 
who appear to have left Him for the mo- 
ment and to have returned to their boats 
and nets at Bethsaida—and opens his 
ministry in the lake cities by the Sermon 
on the Mount. For the end we must go to 
the eleventh chapter of St. Luke, where, in 
the house of a Pharisee, He speaks the 
words which madden Pharisees and lawyers 
nto urging Him vehemently to speak of 
many things, and watching for the words 
which will enable them to entangle, and, as 
hey think, to destroy Him. 


100 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


First, then, as to the main facts so fur ag ) 
they are necessary for our purposes. We . 
may note that our Lord accepts at once the 1 
imprisonment of the Baptist asthe final 
summons to Himself. Gathering, there 
fore, a few of John’s disciples round him, 
and welcoming the restless inquiring crowds 
who had been roused by the voice crying in 
the wilderness, He stands forward at once 
to proclaim and explain the nature of that 
new kingdom of God, which has now to be 
set up in the world. Standing forth alone, 
on the open hill-side, the young Galilean 
peasant gives forth the great proclamation, © 
which by one effort lifted mankind on to 
that new and higher ground on which it 
has been painfully struggling ever since, 
but on the whole with sure though slow 
success, to plant itself and maintain sure 
foothold. 

In all history there is no parallel to it. 

't stands there, a miracle or sign of God’s 
leign in this world, far more wonderfu: — 4 
than any of Christ’s miracles of healing 





CHRIST’S MINISTRY. ACT Il. 101 


Unbelievers have been sneering at and ridi- 
culing it, and Christian doctors paring and 
explaining it away ever since. But there 
it stands, as strong and-fresh as ever, the 
calm declaration and witness of what man- 
kind is intended by God to become on this 
earth of his. 

As a question of courageous utterance 
(with which we are here mainly con- 
cerned), I would only ask you to read it 
through once more, bearing in mind who 
the preacher was —a peasant, already re- 
pudiated by his own neighbors and kinsfolk, 
and suspected by the national rulers and 
teachers; and who were the hearers —a 
motley crowd of Jewish peasants and fisher- 
men, Romish legionaries, traders from Dar 
mascus, Tyre, and Sidon, and the distant 
isles of Greece, with a large sprinkling of 
publicans, scribes, Pharisees, and lawyers. 

The immediate result of the sermon was 
to bow the hearts of this crowd for the time, 
so that He was able to choose followers 
Yom amongst them, much as He would 


102 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


He takes fishermen and peasants, selecting 
only two at most from any rank above the 
lowest, and one of these from a class more 
hated and despised by the Jews than the 
poorest peasant, the publicans. It is plain 
that He might at first have called apostles 
from amongst the upper classes had He 
desired it — as a teacher with any want of 
courage would surely have done. But the 
only scribe who offers himself is rejected. 

The calling of the Apostles is followed 
by a succession of discourses and miracles, 
which move the people more and more, 
until, after that of the loaves, the popular 
enthusiasm rises to the point it had so often 
reached in the case of other preachers and 
leaders of this strange people. They are 
ready to take him by force and make him a 
king. 


enthusiasm, for which He constrains them 
‘ntc a ship, and sends them away before 
Him. After rejoining them and rebuking 
sheir want of understanding and faith, He 


The Apostles apparently encourage this 


CHRIST'S MINISTRY. ACT II. 103 


returns with them to the multitudes, and 
at once speaks of Himself as the bread 
from heaven, in the discourse which offends 
many of his disciples, who from this time 
go back and walk no more with him. The 
brief season of triumphant progress is draw- 
ing to an end, during which He could re- 
joice in spirit in contemplating the human 
harvest which He and his disciples seem to 
be already successfully garnering. 

But, even while the prospect was fairest, 
while the people were surging round Him 
in the first enthusiasm of their new faith, 
there had been ominous signs of that an- 
tagonism of the rulers which was to end on 
Calvary, and we have now to glance at the 
relations of Christ with them during this 
same period. 

This antagonism was of gradual growth. 
In the first instanve many of the scribes 


‘seem to have followed Him, 


and Pharisees 
more for the purpose of hearing and watch- 
ing, than in a spirit of direct hostility. In 


she Sermon on the Mount He only once al 


104 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


ludes to them directly, when He tells his 
hearers that unless their righteousness ex- 
ceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees 
there can be no place for them in this king- 
dom of which He is now proclaiming the 
laws. It does not appear, however, at first 
that they were alienated by what was then 
said, for soon afterwards we find Pharisees 
and doctors of the law from Jerusalem 
‘and every town of Galilee and Judea” 
sitting by while He teaches, “and the 
power of the Lord was present to heal 
them.” 

Now, however, they are aroused and 
startled by Christ’s address to the palsied 


man— “Thy sins are forgiven thee.” — 


The cure of the man silences them for the 
moment. They are filled with fear, and 
glorify God, saying, “We have seen 
strange things to-day.” But Christ’s next 
act again rouses their jealousy afresh. 
He has not called any of them to his side ; 
that, probably, they would have deemed 
presumption. They are waiting and watch 


CHRIST’S MINISTRY. ACT II. 106 


ing ; thinking, doubtless, that their pres- 
ence gives a sanction and respectability to 
the young teacher, which He, and the 
erowds who come to hear and be healed, 
will in due course iearn to appreciate. 
Meantime it might restrain Him and them 
from rash acts and words, which would 
ruin a national movement that might possi- 
bly be hereafter guided to the advantage 
of Israel. 

But now, while the great men are thus 
balancing, and. probably admiring them- 
selves for their liberality, Christ singles 
out Levi the publican, calls him as an Apos- 
tle, and goes to his house to feast with a 
. large company of other publicans. The 
great people remonstrate angrily. Such an 
act outrages all their notions of the orthe- 
dox conduct of a prophet. Christ replies, 
simply, that He has come to call sinners, 
not the righteous, to repentance. 

A few days later an even more serious 
question is raised between them. On a 
Sabbath day his disciples pluck and eat the 


106 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


corn, and Christ iustifies them. On the 
next Sabbath, while they are watching Him, 
He heals a man, with the obvious purpose 
of trying them, and claims to be Lord of 
the Sabbath as He had claimed power to 
forgive sins. They begin to be filled with 
madness, and. commune what they can do to 
Him. 

Still, however, the breach is not final. 
They have not abandoned the hope of using 
the young preacher and prophet for their 
purposes. So Simon, one of their number 
invites Him to his house, and, though neg- 
lecting the usual courtesies of an enter- 
tainer (as out of place in the case of a peas- 
ant), is evidently not treacherous in the in- 
vitation. He might well flatter himself on 
his freedom from class prejudices, and feel 
that such condescension would have a good 
effect on his guest, and might lead Him in 
good time to rely on and consult persons 
moving in the upper ranks of Jewish society 
as to his future course. 

The story of the woman, a sinner, whe 





CHRIST'S MINISTRY. ACT II. 107 


gets into the room and anoints Christ’s 
feet, and the use which He makes of the 
incident — to bring home to Simon’s mind, 
with the most exquisite temper and court- 
esy, but with the most faithful firmness, 
his shortcomings as a host, and his want of 
true insight as a man — are amongst the 
finest illustrations we have of his method | 
with the great and powerful of his nation 

Before leaving the house He once more re 

asserts his power to forgive sins. 

We wust now follow Him to Jerusalem, 
to which He goes up to one of the feasts, 
and, at the headquarters of the scribes and 
Pharisees, deliberately raises afresh the 
burning questions which He had left rank- | 
ling in the minds of the provincial hier- 
archy. He heals the impotent man at the 
pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath day, and 





sends him ‘through the streets carrying his 
bed. Challenged to defend Himselt (prob- 
ably before the Sanhedrim), He claims, 
more explicitly than ever before, that God 
his Father, and has given Him not only 


108 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


power to do mighty works, but “ author- 
ity to execute judgment ;” that their own 
Scriptures testify of Him as He who ean 
give them life if they will come to Him for 
it. Upon which they, naturally enough, 
seek to slay Him; but He gets back ute 
scathed to Galilee, and then follows the 
scene which I have referred to as the end 
of this period of his ministry. 

The Pharisees are now dogging his fout- 
steps wherever He goes, but even yet have 
not given up the hope of coming to some 
terms with One whom they cannot help ae- 
knowledging to wield a power over the peo- 
ple which has slipped away from them- 
selves. Influenced possibly, by a discourse 
in which He upbraids the people as an evil 
generation, without specially alluding, as was 
so often his custom, to the people’s leaders 
and teachers as those upon whom the chief 
guilt rested, they again invite Him into 
their own circle. But now the time is past 
for the kindly courtesy of the feast in Si- 
mon’s house. The usual means of washing 


| 
j 
i 





CHRIST'S MINISTRY. ACT II. 109 


sefore meat are there, but He rejects them. 
They express a well-bred astonishment, and 
then follows that scathing denunciation of 
their hypocrisies and tyrannies, of their 
‘inward parts full of ravening wickedness,” 
which makes the breach final and irreyoca- 
ble between the Son of Man and the rulers 
of Israel. 

Thenceforth Christ has more and more to 
‘tread the wine press alone,” surrounded 
by bewildered followers, and powerful ene- 
mies resolved on his destruction, and un- 
scrupulous as to the means by which it 


must be compassed. 


PART VII. 


CHRIST’S MINISTRY. AOT I. 


“ By the light of burning martyr fires Christ's bleeding feet 


I track, 
Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns 
not back.” LowELL. 


WE have now reached the critical point, 
‘the third act in the world’s greatest drama. 
All chance of the speedy triumph of the 
kingdom of God, humanly speaking, in this 
lake country of Galilee, — the battle-field 
chosen by Himself, where his mightiest 
works had been done and his mightiest 
words spoken, —the district from which 
his chosen companions came, and in which 
vlamorous crowds had been ready to declare 
Him king, —is now over. The conviction 
that this is so, that He is a battled leader, 
in hourly danger of his life, has forced it 
self on Christ. Before entering that bat- 


tle-field, face to face with the tempter in © 


P. re ler 

< a? 

i eee 

eae 


CHRIST’S MINISTRY. ACT III. 111 


the wilderness, He had deliberately rejected 
all aid from the powers and kingdoms of 
this world, and now, for the moment, the 
powers of this world have proved too strong 
for Him. 

The rulers of that people — Pharisee 
Sadducee, and Herodian, scribe and lawyer 
— were now marshaled against Him in one 
compact phalanx, throughout all the coasts 
of Galilee, as well as in Judea. 

His disciples, rough, most of them peas- 
ants, full of patriotism but with small power 
of insight or self-control, were melting 
away from a leader who, while He refused 
them active service under a patriot chief at 
open war with Cesar and his legions, be- 
wildered them by assuming titles and talk- 
ing to them in language which they could 
not understand. They were longing for one 
who would rally them against the Roman 
oppressor, and give them a chance, at any 
rate, of winning their own land again, 
purged of the heathen and free from tribute. 
Such an one would be worth following tg 


112 THE MANLINESS UF CHRIST. 


the death. But what could they make ol 
this “Son of Man,” who would prove his 
title to that name by giving his body and 
pouring out his blood for the life of man — 
of this “Son of God,” who spoke of re- 
deeming mankind and exalting mankind to 
God’s right hand, instead of exalting the 
Jew to the head of mankind? 

In the face of such a state of things to 
remain in Capernaum, or the neighboring 
towns and villages, would have been to 
eourt death, there, and at once. The truly 
courageous man, you may remind me, is not 
turned from his path by the fear of death, 
which is the supreme test and touchstone of 
his courage. True;—nor was Christ se 
turned, even for a moment. 

Whatever may have been his hopes in 
the earlier part of his career, by this time 
He had no longer a thought that mankind 
could be redeemed without his,own perfect 
and absolute sacrifice and humiliation. The 
cup would indeed have to be drunk to the 
dregs, but not here, nor now. This must 


CHRIST’S MINISTRY. ACT III. 113 


be done at Jerusalem, the centre of the 
national life and the seat of the Roman 
government. It must be done during the 
Passover, the national commemoration of 
sacrifice and deliverance. And so He with- 
draws, with a handful of disciples, and even 
they still wayward, half-hearted, doubting, 
from the constant stress of a battle which 
has turned against Him. From this time 
He keeps away from the great centres of 
population, except when, on two occasions 
—at the Feast of Tabernacles and the 
Feast of the Dedication — He flashes for a 
day on Jerusalem, and then disappears 
again into some haunt of outlaws, or of 
wild beasts. This portion of his life com- 
prises something less than the last twelve 
months, from the summer of the second 
year of his ministry till the eve of the last 
Passover, at Easter, in the third year. 

In glancing at the main facts of this pe- 
tiod, as we have done in the former ones, 
we have to note chiefly his intercourse with 


the twelve Apostles, and his preparation of 
8 


114 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


them for the end of his own career and the 
beginning of theirs; his conduct at Jerusa- 
iem during those two autumnal and winter 
feasts; and the occasions when He again 
comes into collision with the rulers and 
Pharisees, both at these feasts and in the 
intervals between them. 

The keynote of it, in spite of certain 
short and beautiful interludes, appears to 
me to beasense of loneliness and oppres- 
sion, caused by the feeling that He has 
work to do, and words to speak, which 
those for whom they are to be done and 
spoken, and whom they are, first of all 
men, to bless, will either misunderstand or 
abhor. Here is all the visible result of his 
labor, and of his travail, and the enemy is 
gathering strength every day. 

This becomes clear, I think, at once, 
when, in the first days after his quitting the 
cake shores, He asks his disciples the ques- 
tion, “* Whom do the world, and whom de 
ye, say that I am?” He is answered by 
Peter in the well-known burst of enthu 


| aS 


CHRIST’S MINISTRY. ACT 2111. 116 


siasm, that, though the people only look on 
Him as a prophet, such as Elijah or Jere- 
miah, his own chosen followers see in Him 
“the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 

It is this particular moment which He 
elects for telling them distinctly, that 
Christ will not triumph as they regard tri- 
umphing ; that He will fall into the power 
of his enemies, and be humbled and slain 
by them. At once the proof comes of how 
little even the best of his own most inti- 
mate friends had caught the spirit of his 
teaching or of his kingdom. The announce- 
ment of his humiliation and death, which 
none but the most truthful and courageous 
of men would have made at such a moment, 
leaves them almost as much bewildered as 
the crowds in the lake cities had been a few 
days before. 

Their hearts are faithful and simple, and 
upon them, as Peter has testified, the truth 
has flashed once for all, that there can be 
no other Saviour of men than this Man 
with whom they are living. Still, by what 


116 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


means and to what end the salvation shall 
come, they are scarcely less ignorant than 
the people who had been in vain seeking 
from Him a sign such as they desired. His 
own elect “understood not his saying, and 
it was hid from them, that they perceived 
it not.” Rather, indeed, they go straight 
from that teaching to dispute amongst them- 
selves who of them shall be the greatest 
in that kingdom which they understand so 
little. And so their Master has to begin 
again at the beginning of his teaching, and, 
placing a little child amongst them, to de 
elare that not of such men as they deem 
themselves, but of such as this child, is the 
kingdom of heaven. 

The episode of the Transfiguration fol- 
lows; and immediately after it, as though 
purposely to warn even the three chosen 
friends who had been present against new 
delusions, He repeats again the teaching 
as to his death and humiliation. And He re- 
iterates it whenever any exhibition of power 
or wisdom seems likely to encourage the 


CHRIST’S MINISTRY. ACT II}. 117 


frame of mind in the twelve generally which 
had lately brought the great rebuke on 
Peter. How slowly it did its work, even 
with the foremost disciples, there are but 
too many proofs. 

Amongst his kinsfolk and the people 
generally, his mission, thanks to the cabals 
of the rulers and elders, had come by this 
time to be looked upon with deep distrust 
and impatience. ‘“ How long dost Thou 
make us to doubt? Go up to this coming 
feast, and there prove your title before 
those who know how to judge in such mat- 
ters,” is the querulous cry of the former as 
the Feast of Tabernacles approaches. He 
does not go up publicly with the caravan, 
which would have been at this time need- 
lessiy to incur danger, but, when the feast 
18 half over, suddenly appears in the tem- 
ple. There He again openly affronts the 
tulers by justifying his former acts, and 
teaching and proclaiming that He who has 
sent Him is true, and is their God. 

It is evidently on account of this new 


118 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


proof of daring that the people now again 
begin to rally round him. “Behold, He 
speaketh boldly. Do our rulers know thal 
this is Christ?” is the talk which fills the 
air, and induces the scribes and Pharisees, 
for the first time, to attempt his arrest by 
their officers. 

The officers return without Him, and 
their masters are, for the moment, power- 
less before the simple word of Him who, as 
_ their own servants testify, ‘speaks as never 
man spake.” But if they cannot arrest and 
execute, they may entangle Him further, 
and prepare for their day, which is surely 
and swiftly coming. So they bring to Him 
the woman taken in adultery, and draw 
from Him the discourse in which He tells 
them that the truth will make them free -— 
the truth which He has come to tell them, 
but which they will not hear, because they 
are of their father the devil. He ends with 
asserting his claim to the name which every 
Jew held sacred, “before Abraham was, I 
am.” The narrative of the seventh and 


CHRIST'S MINISTRY. ACT III. 119 


eighth chapters of St. John, which record 
these scenes at the Feast of Tabernacles, 
have, I believe, done more to make men 
courageous and truly manly, than all the 
stirring accounts of bold deeds which ever 
were written elsewhere. 

The report of what had happened at the 
Feast of Tabernacles seems to have re 
kindled for a moment the fitful zeal of the 
people of Galilee. Christ does not, how- 
ever, avail Himself of this reaction until 
the time comes for another return to Jeru- 
salem to the Feast of Dedication, when, 
probably in the month of November or early 
in December, He returns once more to Ca- 
pernaum, to prepare for his last journey. 
The Pharisees, impotent themselves for the 
moment, now hurry to warn Him that 
Herod is seeking to kill Him; but He 
passes on his way with perfect indifference. 

The crowds seem, as of old, inclined t« 
gather round Him again. He selects sev- 
enty from amongst them, and sends them 
on to prepare his route, following Himself, 


120 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


and, this time, it being his last pilgrimage, 
vith the multitude. 

And now, again, in the first days of thia 
progress, the most trusted of the Apostles 
show how little, even yet, they understand 
their Lord, or their own work. When they 
see their Master once more at the head of 
a throng of followers the old spirit comes 
back on them as strongly as ever, and they 
are anxious to call down fire from heaven 
vo consume those who will not receive Him. 
His rebuke and warning, yet again, pass by 
them, and get no hold on them. Rather, 
the incidents of the journey impress them 
more and more with the belief that, at last, 
the kingdom is coming with power. At 
ength, at some point in the progress, they 
are amazed, and as they follow are afraid. 
Once more Christ takes them aside, and 
endeavors to dispel their dreams, repeat- 
ing to them, in painful detail, what will 
happen to Himself at Jerusalem at the 
end of this journey; that He will be be- 
trayed, delivered to the Gentiles, mocked 


CHRIST’S MINISTRY. ACT II. 12% 


scourged, spat upon, crucified. In spite of 
this warning, and while it is yet ringing in 
their ears, we find James and John asking 
for the places of honor in the kingdom of 
their own imaginations ! 

At the feast He is met by the Pharisees 
and scribes in a somewhat different temper 
from that which they had shown at the end 
of his last visit. For He is once again at 
the head of a vast and eager multitude. 
They know that some, even of their own 
number, are inclined to believe in Him. 
They appeal to Him, passionately, to say 
who He is. He replies by referring to his 
former teaching about his Father, whom 
they claimed as their God, adding, “I and 
my Father are one.” 

Such a teply He well knew could only 
have one result. He was alone; and in the 
ears of those who surrounded Him He was 
speaking blasphemy, which could only be 
expiated by instant death. Yet He neither 
hesitates nor temporizes, but, when they 
seize stones to inflict the penalty, meets 


122 THE MANLINESS JF CHRIST. 


them with a bearing so calm and manly 
that they can no mure cast the first stone at 
Him than they could three months before 
at the woman taken in adultery. 

He leaves Jerusalem once more after the 
feast, going across Jordan with his Apostles 
to the country where John came preaching 
and baptizing, and remains there preaching 
to those who come to Him, until the news 
of Lazarus’s death takes Him for a few days 
to Bethany. After the raising of his friend 
He returns to Perea again, and leaves 
it only when the great caravan is passing by 
on its way to the Passover, in the early 
spring. He joins the caravan with his dis- 
ciples, passing with it through Jericho, the 
city of priests, and selecting there the pub- 
lican Zacchzus as his host, —a last lesson, 
by example, of the kind of material which 
will be used in building up his kingdom. 

On the first day of the feast He rides into 
Jerusalem in apparent triumph, the city 
mob joining the pilgrim mob in greeting 
Him with loud Hosannas. Once more He 


CHRIST'S MINISTRY. ACT III. 123 


tleanses the temple, and rouses the covet- 
ousness of the money-changers into active 
_ alliance with the bigotry of the priests, and 
the wild anger and jealousy of the rulers, 
to sweep this terrible Galilean revolutionist 
from the face of the earth, before He shall 
ruin them all. 

For two days He continues to meet them 
in the temple and public resorts of the city, 
shaming, confuting, and denouncing them, 
and widening hour by hour that breack 
which was already gaping wide between 
the nation and city and their true Lord and 
King. The last scene in the temple, re- 
corded in ‘John, brings the long struggle to 
a close. 

The more carefully you study this long 
wrestle with the blind leaders of a doomed 
nation, which has now come to an end, th 
more you will recognize the perfect truth- 
fulness and therefore the perfect courage,| 
which marks Christ’s conduct of it. From| 
beginning to end tkere is no word or act 
which can mislead friend or foe. The | 


124 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


strife, though for life and death, has left nc 
srace or stain on his nature. Fresh from 
the last and final conflict in the temple 


court, He can pause on the side of Olivet to . 


weep over the city, the sight of which can 
still wring from Him the pathetic yearnings 
of a soul purified from all taint of bitter- 
ness. 

It is this most tender and sensitive of 
the sons of men — with fibres answering to 
every touch and breath of human sympathy 
or human hate — who has borne with abso- 
lutely unshaken steadfastness the distrust 
and anger of kinsfolk, the ingratitude of 
tonverts, the blindness of disciples, the fit- 
ful and purblind worship, and hatred, and 
fear, of the nation of the Jews. So far, we 
can estimate to some extent the burden 
and the strain, and realize the strength and 
beauty of the spirit which could bearit all. 
Beyond and behind lie depths into which 
we can but glance. For in those last hours 
of his life on earth the question was to be 


—_—* 


CHRIST'S MINISTRY. ACT III. 125 


devided whether we men have in deed and 
in truth a brotherhood, in a Son of Man, 
the head of humanity, who has united man- 
kind to their Father, and can enable them 
to know Him. 


PART VILL 


THE LAST ACT. 


“ Thou seem’st both human and divine; 
The highest, holiest manhood Thou! ” 
TENNYSON. 


WE have reached the last stage, which is 
also the most critical one, of our inquiry. 
It is upon the accounts which we have of 
Christ’s agony that the scornful denials of 
his manliness mainly rest. How, it is 
asked, can you Christians recognize as per 
fect man, as the head and representative ot 
humanity, one who showed such signs of 
physical fear and weakness as Christ, by 
your own confession, showed in the garden 
of Gethsemane? Even without going to 
the roll of saints and martyrs, hundreds of 
men and women can be named who have 
looked a cruel death in the face without 
flinching, and endured tortures at least as 


x 


THE LAST ACT 127 


painful as his with a constancy which was 
wanting in Him. 

It was, indeed, a speech of this kind, in 
which the death ot the Abolitionist leader, 
John Brown, was contrasted with that of 
Christ, as one so far superior in manliness 
that it ought to be enough of itself to 
shame Christians out of their superstition, 
which confirmed me in proposing this in- 
quiry to you, as the most necessary and 
useful one we could engage in. 

Now I freely admit that there is no re- 
rorded end of a life that I know of more 
entirely brave and manly than this one of 
Captain John Brown, of which we know 
every minutest detail, as it happened in the 
full glare of our modern life not twenty 
years ago. About that I think there would 
scarcely be disagreement anywhere. The 
very men who allowed him to lie in his 
bloody clothes till the day of his execu- 
tion, and then hanged him, recognized this. 
“You are a game man, Captain Brown,” 
the Southern sheriff said in the wagom 


é 


128 141E MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


“Yes,” he answered, “I was so brought up 
It was one of my mother’s lessons. From 
infancy I have not suffered from physical 
fear. I have suffered a thousand times 
more from bashfulness;’”’ and then he 
kissed a negro child in its mother’s arme 
and walked cheerfully on to the scafluid, 
thankful that he was “allowed to die for a 
cause, and not merely to pay the debt of 
nature, as all must.” 

There is no simpler or nobler record in 
' the ‘Book of Martyrs,” and in passing I 
would only remind you, that he at least was 
ready to acknowledge from whence came his 
strength. “ Christ, the great Captain of lib- 
erty as well as of salvation,” he wrote just 
before his death, “‘ saw fit to take from me 
_ the sword of steel after I had carried it for 
a time. But He has put another in my 
hand, the sword of the Spirit, and I pray 
God to make me a faithful soldier wher 
ever He may send me.” And to a friend 
who left him with the words, “If you can 
ve true to yourself to the end how glad we 


THE LAST ACT. 129 


shall be,” he answered, “Icannot say, but 
I do not think I shall deny my Lord and 
Master, Jesus Christ.” The old Abolition- 
ist would have been as amazed as any man 
at such acomparison as we are dealing 
with, and would have reminded us that, so 
far from treading the wine-press alone, he 
was upheld by the sympathy and enthusi- 
asm of all of his own nation, and of the 
world outside his own nation, for whom he 
cared. 

No such support had Christ. He knew 
too well that even the strongest of the little 
band which came with Him to the garden 
would deny Him before the light dawned 
over Olivet. And that sense of utter lone- 
liness it was, more probably than all the 
rest of the burden which He was carrying, 
that wrung from Him the - prayer of agony, 
recalled almost before it was uttered, that 
the cup might pass from Him, and caused 
the sweat as it were great drops of blood to 
fall from his brow as He knelt and prayed. 


How the .radition of that agony and 
5 


180 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


bloody sweat has come to us is hard to say, 
as the nearest witnesses were asleep; but 
no Christian doubts that it is a true one, or 
that the passion of human weakness which 
then passed over his soul was a genuine 
shrinking from the unutterable anguish 
which was weighing it down to the dust. 

But even admitting frankly all that is 
recorded of the agony and bloody sweat, 
such admission can only enhance the sub- 
lime courage of all that follows. It is his 
action when the danger comes, not when 
he is in solitary preparation for it, which 
marks the man of courage. 

Let us just glance at this action. As 
Judas with his torchmen draws near He 
gathers Himself together, rouses his sleepy 
followers, and meets his enemy in the gate 
There could have been no quailing in the 
glance before which the armed crowd of 
priests’ retainers went backward and fell to 
the ground. 

Follow Him through that long night: te 
the Sanhedrim chamber, where He Himself 


sHE LAST ACT 13] 


furnishes the evidence which the chief priest 
sought for in vain while He was silent — to 
the court of the palace, where He bore the 
ribaldry and dastard tortures and insults ol 
the low Jewish crowd till morning, turning 
in the midst of them with the reminding 
look to Peter, which sent his last friend, 
broken down by the consciousness of his 
own cowardice, weeping into the night —to 
the judgment-seat of Pilate, and the scourg- 
ings of the Roman soldiers—to Herod’s 
yall and the insults of the base Galilean 
purt — back again to the judgment-seat of 
the representative of the divine Tiberius, 
and so to the final brutalities in the preto- 
rium while th» cross is preparing, and the 
blood which is dripping from the crown of 
thorns on his brow mingles with that which 
flows from the wounds of his scourgings — 
and find, if you can, one momentary sign 
of terror or of weakness. 
In all the world’s annals there is nothing 
which appreaches, in the sublimity of its 
sourage, that last conversation between 


132 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIS2 


the peasant prisoner, by this time a mass of 
filth and blood, and the Roman procurator, 
before Pilate led Him forth for the last time - 
and pleaded scornfully with his nation for 
the life of their King. The canon from 
which we started must guide us to the end. 
There must, be no flaw or spot on Christ’s 
courage, any more than on his wisdom and 
tenderness and sympathy. And for the last 
time [ repeat, the more unflinchingly we 
apply the test, the more clear and sure will 
the response come back to us. 

We have been told recently, by more 
than one of those who profess to have 
weighed and measured Christianity and 
found it wanting, that religion must rest on 
aeason, based on phenomena of this visible, — 
tangible world in which we are living. 

Be it so. There is no need for a Chris- 
tian to object. He can meet this challenge 
as well as any other. We need never ve 
eareful about choosing our own battle-field, 
Looking, then, at that world as we see it, 
‘aboring heavily along in our own time 


THE LAST ACT. 03 


—as we hear of it through the revords of 
the ages —I must repeat that there is no 
phenomenon in it comparable for a moment 
to this of Christ’s life and work. The more 
we canvass and sift and weigh and balance 
the materials, the more clearly and grandly 
does his figure rise before us, as the true 
Head of humanity, the perfect Ideal, nc 
only of wisdom and tenderness and love 
but of courage also, because He was and 
is the simple Truth of God — the expres- 
sion, at last, in flesh and blood, of what He 
who created us means each one of our race 
to be. ' 


We have now finished our endeavor tt 
look at the life of Christ from one point os 
view, and in special eonnection with one 
human quality. I trust it may prove to be 
only the first step for many of you in a 
study which will last your lives. At any 
rate it is one which the reverence which is 
felt by every member of this College for 
sur founder ought to commend to us ahove 
all others. 


134 THE MANLINESS OF ChRIST. 


He, as you all know, was never weary of 
impressing on us, term after term, year af- 
ter year, that the aim of this place is to 
roake good citizens, and that this ean only 
be done by keeping vividly before ourselves, 
*n all our work here, that common human- 
ity which binds us all together by the tier 
of family, of neighborhood, of country. 
What that common humanity means and 
implies, he taught us, can only be under- 
stood by reference to a Son of Man, and 
Son of God, in whom we have all a common 
interest, through whom we have all a com 
mon spiritual relationship to his and our 
Father. 

To bring this home to us all, as the ¢en- 
tral truth of our own lives, as the master- 
key of the confusions and perplexities in our 
own hearts and in the world around us, 
was the crowning work of his life, and I 
trust we have been true to his principle and 
his method in our attempt to realize the 
life of this Son of Man, and Son of God 
an this earth, which is so mysteriously at 


THE LAST ACT 18¢ 


strife with the will of its Creator and Re 
deemer. 

Into the heart of the mystery of that 
strife the wisest and best of us cannot pene- 
trate, but the wayfaring man cannot help 
seeing that it is precisely around this life 
of the Son of Man and Son of God that 
the fiercest controversies of our time are 
raging. Is it not also becoming clearer 
every day that they will continue to rage 
more and more fiercely —that there can be 
no rest or peace possible for mankind — 
until all things are subdued to Him, and 
brought into harmony with his life ? 

It is to this work that all churches and 
sects, Catholic and Protestant, that all the 
leading nations of the world, known collec- 
tively as Christendom, are pledged: and 
the time for redeeming that pledge is run- 
aing out rapidly, as the distress and per- 
plexity, the threatening disruption and an- 
archy, of Christendom too clearly show. It 
is to this work too that you and I, every 
man and woman of us, are also called; and 


136 THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. 


if we would go about it with any hope and 
courage, it can only be by keeping the life 
of Christ vividly before us day by day, and 
turning to it as to a fountain in the desert, 
as to the shadow of a great rock in a weary 
land. 

From behind the shadow the still small 
voice — more awful than tempest or earth. 
quake — more sure and persistent than day 
and night— is always sounding, full of 
hope and strength to the weariest of us all, 
“Be of good cheer, I have overcome the 
world.” 


Tlopevou kai ov zroiov Gpouss, 


CONCLUSION.! 


&N ADDRESS, DELIVERED AT CLIFTON COL 
LEGE, SUNDAY EVENING, OCTOBER, 1879. 


‘* They crowd upon us in this shade, 
The youth who own the coming years — 
Be never God or land betrayed 
By any son our Harvard rears.’’ 
THe Rev. R. LowEu.. 


W2ar is it in such societies as yours that gives 
them so strong a hold on, so unique an attrac- 
tion for, those who have been for years engaged 
in the rough work of life? That the fact is so 
I think no one wili deny, explain it how they 
will. I at least cannot remember to have met 
with any man who will not own that a visit to 
one of our great schools moves and touches him 
on a side of his nature which for the most part 
lies quiet, almost dormant, but which he feels it 
is good for him should be stirred. He may go 
back to his work without an effort to explain to 
himself why these unwonted sensations have vis- 
ited him, but rot without a consciousness that he 
has had a change of air which has done him good 

1 Printed by request. — T. H. 


138 CONCLUSION. 


—that he has been in a bracing atmosphere, like 
that at the top of some high mountain pass, 
where the morning sun strikes earlier and more 
brightly than in the valleys where his daily task 
must be done. 

To him who cares to pursue the inquiry, I 
think the conviction will come, that to a stranger 
there is something at once inspiring and pathetie 
in such societies as this, standing apart as they 
do from, and yet so intimately connected with, 
the great outside world. 

Inspiring, because he finds himself once again 
amongst these before whom the golden gates of 
active life are about to open, for good or evil 
— each one of whom holds in his hands the keys 
of those gates, the keys of light or of darkness, 
amongst whom faith is strong, hope bright, and 
ideals, untainted as yet by the world’s slow stain, 
still count for a great power. 

Pathetic, because he knows but too well how 
hard the path is to find, how steep to climb, on 
the further side of those golden gates — how 
often in the journey since he himself passed 
put from under them, his own faith and hope 
have burned dimly, and his ideal has faded away 
as he toiled on, or sat by the wayside, looking 


CONCLUSION. 139 


wistfully after it; till in the dust and jar, the 
heat and strain of the mighty highway, he has 
been again and again tempted to doubt whether 
it was indeed anything more than a phantom ex- 
halation, which had taken shape in ‘the glorious 
morning light, only to vanish when the work- 
day sun had risen fairly above the horizon, and 
dispersed the colored mists. 

He may well be pardoned if, at such times, 
the remembrance of the actual world in which he 
is living, and of the generation which moved into 
line on the great battle-field when he himself 
shouldered musket and knapsack, and passed into 
action out of the golden gates, should for a mo- 
ment or two bring the pathetic side of the picture 
into strongest relief. “ Whére are they now 
who, represented genius, valor, self-sacrifice, the 
invisible heavenly world to these? Are they 
dead? Has the high ideal died out of them? 
Will it be better with the new generation?” ! 

Such thoughts, such doubts, will force them- 
selves at times on us all, to be met as best wa 
may. Happy the man who is able, not at all 
times and in all places, but on the whole, to hold 
them resolutely at arm’s length, and to follow 


1 Emerson. 


140 CONCLUSION. . 


straight on, though often wearily and painfully 
in the tracks of the divine visitor who stood by 
his side in his youth, though sadly conscious of 
weary lengths of way, of gulfs and chasms, 
which since those days have come to stretch and 
yawn between him and his ideal — of the differ- 
ence between the man God meant him to be — 
of the manhood he thought he saw so clearly in 
those early days — and the man he and the world 
have together managed to make of him. 

I say, happy is that man. I had almost said 
that no other than he is happy in any true or 
noble sense, even in this hard materialist nine- 
teenth century, when the faith, that the weak 
must to the wall, that the strong alone are to 
survive, prevails as it never did before — which 
on the surface seems specially to be organized 
for the destruction of ideals and the quenching 
of enthusiasms. I feel deeply the responsibility 
of making any assertion on so moot a point to 
‘uch an audience in such a place as this; never 
theless, even in our materialist age, I must urge 
you all, as you would do good work in the 
world, to take your stand resolutely and once 
for all, at school and all your lives through, on 
the side of the idealists. 


CONCLUSION. 141 


In doing so I trust and believe I shall not be 
1anning counter to the teaching you are accus- 
tomed to hear in this place. I know that I should 
be running counter to it if anything I may say 
were to give the least encouragement to dreami- 
ness or dawdling. Let me say, then, at once and 
emphatically, that nothing can be farther from 
my wish or thought. The only idealism I plead 
for is not only compatible with sustained and 
vigorous work: it cannot be maintained with- 
out it. 

The gospel of work is a true gospel though 

‘not the only one, or the highest, and has been 
preached in our day by great teachers. And I do 
not deny that the advice I have just been giving 
you may seem at first sight to conflict with the 
work-gospel. Listen, for instance, to the ring of 
it in the rugged and incisive words of one of our 
strongest poets : — 

‘s That low man seeks a little thing to do, 

Sees it and does it. 

This high man, with a great thing to pursue, 
Dies ere he knows it. 

That low man goes on adding one to one, 
His hundreds scon hit. 

This high man aiming at a million, 
Misses a unit.” 


142 CONCLUSION. 


This sounds like a deliberate attack on the ideal 
ist, a direct preference of low to high aims and 
standards, of the seen to the unseen. It is in 
reality only a wholesome warning against aim- 
ing at any ideal by wrong methods, though the 
use of the words “low” and “high ” is no doubt 
likely to mislead. The true idealist has no 
quarrel with the lesson of these lines; indeed, 
he would be glad to see them written on one of 
the door-posts of every great school, if only they 
were ballasted on the other by George Her- 
bert’s quaint and deeper wisdom. 
* Pitch thy behavior low, thy projects high, 
So shalt thou humble and magnanimous be. 


Sink not in spirit : who aimeth at the sky, 
Shoots higher much than he that means a tree.” 


Both sayings are true, and worth carrying in 
your minds as part of their permanent furniture, 
and you will find that they will live there very 
peaceably side by side. 

There is in truth no real antagonism between 
them. The seeming paradox, like so many 
others, disappears in the working world. In the 
atress of the great battle of life it will trouble nc 
soldier who keeps a single eye in his head and 





CONCLUSION. 143 


a sound heart in his bosom. For he who has 
the clearest and intensest vision of what is at 
issue in that battle, and who quits himself in it 
most manfully, will be the first to acknowledge 
that for him there has been no approach to vic- 
tory except by the faithful doing day by day 
of the work which lay at his own threshold. 
On the other hand the universal experience of 
mankind —the dreary confession of those who 
have merely sought a “low thing,” and “ gone 


i) 


on adding one to one;” making that the aim 
and object of their lives— unite in warning us 
that on these lines no true victory can be had, 
either for the man himself or for the cause he 
was sent into the world to maintain. 

No, there is no victory possible for boy or 
man without humility and magnanimity ; and no 
numility or magnanimity possible without ar 
ideal. I have been pleading with you boys te 
take sides with the idealists at once and through 
ife. I have told you unless you do so you can 
neither be truly humble nor truly magnanimous, 
You may reply, “ Well, that advice may be good 
or bad, we cannot tell, until you tell us how we 
are to side with them, and what you mean by an 


144 CONCLUSION. 


idealist.” Such a reply would be only reason 
able, and I will try to answer the demand it 
makes, or at any rate to give’ you a few hints 
wuich will enable you to work out the question 
for yourselves. 

There is not one amongst you all, I care not 
how young he may be, who has not heard or felt 
the call in his own heart to put aside all evil 
habits, and to live a brave, simple, truthful life in 
this school. It may have come to you while lis- 
tening in chapel or elsewhere to religious teach- 
ing, or in the play fields or dormitories ;. when 
you have been alone or in company, at work or 
at play, but that it has come, at some time, in 
some place, there is not a boy in this chapel who 
will deny. It is no modern, no Christian experi- 
ence, this. The choice of Hercules, and number- 
less other Pagan stories, the witness of nearly all 
histories and all literatures, attest that it is an 
experience common to all our race. It is of it 
that the poet is thinking in those fine lines of 
Emerson which are written up in the Hall of 
Marlborough College : — 


** So close is glory to our dust, 
So near is God to man — 





CONCLUSION. 145 


When duty whispers low, ‘thou must,’ 
The youth replies, ‘I can.’ ” 


It does not wait for the reasoning powers to be 
developed, but comes right in upon the boy him- 
self, appealing to him to listen and follow. 

It is this whisper, this call, which is the ground 
of what I have, for want of a better name, been 
speaking of as idealism. Just in so far as the 
boy listens to and welcomes it he is becoming an 
idealist — one who is rising out of himseif, and 
into direct contact and communion with spiritual 
influences, which even when he shrinks from 
them, and tries to put them aside, he feels and 
knows to be as real, and will live, I hope, to ac- 
knowledge to be more real than all influences 
coming to him from the outside world —one 
who is bent on bringing himself and the world 
into obedience to these spiritual influences. If 
he turns to meet the call and answers ever so 
feebly and hesitatingly, it becomes clearer and 
stronger. He will feel next, that just in so far 
~ as he is loyal to it he is becoming loyal to his 
brethren: that he must not only build his own 
life up in conformity with its teaching, must not 


wnly find or cut his own way straight to what ia 
10. 


146 CONCLUSION. 


fair and trae and noble, but must help on those 
who are around him and will come after him, and 
make the path easier and plainer for them also. 

I have indicated in outline, in a few sentences, 
a process which takes a life-time to work out. 
You all know too, alas! even those who have al- 
ready listened most earnestly to the voice, and 
followed most faithfully, how many influences 
there are about you and within you which stand 
across the first steps in the path, and bar your 
progress; which are forever dwarfing and dis- 
torting the ideal you are painfully struggling 
after, and appealing to the cowardice and lazi- 
ness and impurity which are in every one of us, 
to thwart obedience to the call. But here, as 
elsewhere, it is the first step which costs, and 
tells. He who has once taken that, consciously 
and resolutely, has gained a vantage ground for 
all his life. That first step, remember, ought to 
be taken by English boys at our English schools. 

And here let me turn aside for a moment to 
note for you what seems to me, looking from out 
side, the ideal for which you English boys should 
just now be specially striving. The strength 
and weakness of the nation of which you are a 


CONCLUSION. 147 


part will always be reflected powerfully in these 
miniature Englands, and there is a national 
weakness which is alarming all thoughtful Eng- 
lishmen at this time. Our race on both sides of 
the Atlantic has, for generations, got and spent 
money faster than any other, and this spend- 
thrift habit has had a baleful effect on English 
life. It has made it more and more feverish and 
unsatisfying. The standard of expenditure haa 
been increasing by leaps and bounds, and de 
moralizing trade, society, every industry, and 
every profession until a false ideal has estab- 
lished itself, and the aim of life is too commonly 
to get, not to be, while men are valued more and 
more for what they have, not for what they are 

The reaction has, I trust, set in. A period of 
depression, such as not been known for half a 
century, has come, happily in time to show us 
how unreal and transitory is all such material 
prosperity, that a nation’s life cannot stand any 
more than a man’s in the things which it possesses, 
But the reign of Mammon will be hard to put 
down, and all wholesome influences which can 
ve brought to bear upon that evil stronghold wil] 
ve sorely needed. 


148 CONCLUSION. 


Amongst these none should be more potem 
than that of our great schools. It is probably 
too late for the present generation of grown men 
to restore a sounder tone and set up a higher 
ideal. Those by whom it must be done, if it be 
done at all, are now growing up in such schools 
as this. There can be, I fear, no question that 
the outside world has been reflected in our 
schools. I hear on all sides stories of increased 
expenditure of all kinds. There must be fancy 
dresses for all games, and boys are made to feel 
uncomfortable who do not conform to the fashion, 
or who practice such useful and often necessary 
economies as wearing old clothes or traveling 
third-class. You know whether such things are 
true here. If they are, they are sapping true 
manliness, and tainting our national life at its 
roots. But the stain, I believe, has not sunk so 
deep, and the reaction may be swifter and deeper 
than elsewhere in societies bound together in so 
close an intimacy as must exist in such schools as 
this. 

In no other portions of English ‘society caa 
cublic opinion be modified so swiftly and so rad 
wally as in a public school. One generation of 


CONCLUSION. 149 


wrave boys may do it, and a school generation is 
only a short four or five years, I say, then, de- 
lberately, that no man can gauge the value in 
English life at this present critical time of a 
steady stream of young men, flowing into all pro- 
fessions and all industries from our public schools, 
who have learnt resolutely to use those words so 
hard to speak in a society such as ours, “I can’t 
afford;” who have been trained to have few 
wants and to serve these themselves, so that they 
may have always something to spare of power 
and of means to help others; who are “ careless 
of the comfits and cushions of life,’ and content 
to leave them to the valets of all ranks. Many 
of us have hopes from all we hear and know of 
this and other such schools that such a stream of 
free and helpful young men may be looked for. 
Will you, boys, and, above all, you elder boys, 
who can give a tone to the standards and ideals 
xf to-day here, which may last for many years, 
see that, so far at any rate as Clifton is con- 
cerned, such hopes shall not be disappointed? 
And take my word for it, while you will be 
doing a great work for your country, and restor- 
ng an ideal which has al) but faded out, you wil: 


150 CONCLUSION. 


be taking the surest road to all such success as 
becomes honest men to achieve, in whatever walk 
of life you may choose for yourselves. The out- 
look is by no means cheerful even for those who 
have learnt to live simply, and to estimate “com- 
fits and cushions” at their true value, either in 
England or elsewhere. The following of false 
ideals has, I fear, thrown heavy odds for many 
years to come against the chances in our modern 
life of those who will not bow down to them. 

It is more than thirty years since the wisest of 
American writers, and one of the best of Amer. 
ican gentlemen, speaking to the young men of 
New England, made much the same sad confes- 
sion as I am making to you to-day. “The young 
man,” he says, “on entering life finds the way to 
lucrative employment blocked by abuses. The 
ways of trade are grown selfish to the borders 
of theft, and supple to the borders (if not beyond 
the borders) of fraud. The employments of com- 
merce are not intrinsically unfit for a man, or 
Yess genial to his faculties ; but these are now in 
eheir general course so vitiated by derelictions 
and abuses, at which all connive, that it requires 
more vigor and resources than can be expected 





CONCLUSION. 151 


of every young man to right himself in them. 
Has he genius and virtue? the less does he find 
them fit for him to grow in, and if he would 
thrive in them he must sacrifice a.] the brilliant 
dreams of boyhood and youth; he must forget 
the prayers of his childhood, and must take on 
him the harness of routine and obsequiousness. 
.-- I do not charge the merchant or manufac- 
turer. The sins of our trade belong to no class, 
to no individual. One plucks, one distributes, 
one eats. Everybody partakes, everybody con- 
fesses — with cap and knee volunteers his con- 
fession, yet none feels himself accountable. He 
did not create the abuse, he cannot alter it... . 
It happens, therefore, that all such ingenuous 
souls as feel in themselves the irrepressible striv- 
ings of a noble aim, who by the law of their 
nature must act simply, find these ways of trade 
unfit for them, and they come forth from it. 
Such cases are becomirg more common every 
day. But by coming out of trade you have not 
cleared yourselves — the trail of the serpent 
reaches into all the lucrative professions and 
practices of men. Each has its own wrongs. 
Each finds a very intelligent conscience a dis 


152 CONCLUSION. 


qualification for success.” And so farther on he 
adds — “ Considerations of this kind have turned 
the attention of many philanthropists and intelli- 
gent persons to the claims of manual labor as 
part of the education of every young man. If 
the accumulated wealth of the past generation is 
thus tainted —no matter how much of it is 
offered to us — we must begin to consider if it 
were not the nobler part to renounce it, and to 
put ourselves into primary relations with the soil 
and nature, and, abstaining from whatever is dis- 
honest and unclean, to take each of us bravely 
his part with his own hands in the manual labor 
of the world.” 

It is a sad confession that our modern society 
has come to such a pass, but one which I fear 


holds as true for England as for America. That ~ 


it will continue so no one who has faith in a 
righteous government of the world can believe. 
There seem to me signs on all sides that it is 
coming to an end, and that a new industrial world 
is already forming under the wreck of the old. 
But the time of change must be one of sore trial, 
and your generation will have to bear the strain 
af it. In such a time as this they only will be 





CONCLUSION. ; 153 


able to help their country in her need who have 
learned in early life the great lessons of sim- 
plicity and self-denial, and I don’t hesitate to say 
that the worst education which teaches simplic- 
ity and self-denial is better than the best which 
teaches all else but this. 

The first aim then for your time and your 
generation should be, to foster, each in your- 
selves, and each in your school, a simple and self- 
denying life — your ideal, to be a true and useful 
one, must have these two characteristics before 
all others. Of course purity, courage, truthful- 
ness are as absolutely necessary as ever, without 
them there can be no ideal at all. But as each 
age and each country has its own special needs 
and weaknesses, so the best mind of its youth 
should be bent on serving where the need is 
sorest, and bringing strength to the weak places. 
There will be always crowds ready to fall in with 
the dapper, pliant ways which lead most readily 
to success in every community. Society has been 
said to be “always and everywhere in conspir- 
acy against the true manhood of every one of its 
members ;” and the saying, though bitter, con- 
sains a sad truth. So the faithful idealist will 


154 CONCLUSION. 


have to learn, without arrogance and with per- 
fect good temper, to treat society as a child, and 
never to allow it to dictate. So treated, society 
will surely come round to those who have a high 
ideal before them, and therefore firm ground un- 
der their feet. 
“* Coy Hebe flies from those that woo 
And shuns the hand would seize upon her; 
Live thou thy life, and she will sue, 

To pour for thee the cup of honor.” 

Let me say a word or two more on this busi- 
ness of success. Is it not, after all, the test of 
true and faithful work? Must it not be the 
touchstone of the humble and magnanimous, as 
well as of the self-asserting and ambitious? Un- 
doubtedly ; but here again we have to note that 
what passes with society for success, and is so 
labeled by public opinion, may well be, as often 
as not actually is, a bad kind of failure. 

Public opinion in our day has, for instance, 
been jubilant over the success of those who have 
started in life penniless and have made large 
fortunes. Indeed, this particular class of self- 
made men is the one which we have been of late 
mvited to honor. Before doing so, however 


CONCLUSION. 150 


we shall have ‘to ask with some care, and bear- 
ing in mind Emersen’s warnings, by what meth- 
ods the fortune has been made. The rapid ac- 
cumulation of national wealth in England can 
scarcely be called a success by any one who 
studies the methods by which it has been made, 
and its effects on the national character. It 
may be otherwise with this or that millionaire, 
but each case must be judged on its own merits. 

I remember hearing, years ago, of an old mer- 
chant who, on his death-bed, divided the results 
of long years of labor, some few hundreds in 
all, amongst his sons. “It is little enough, my 
boys,” were almost his last words, “but there 
is n’t a dirty shilling in the whole of it.” He had 
been a successful man too, though not in the 
“self-made” sense. For his ideal had been, not 
to make money, but to keep clean hands. And 
he had been faithful to it. 

In reading the stories of these last persons 
whom the English nation is invited to honor, I 
am generally struck with the predominance of 
the personal element. The key-note seems gen- 
erally some resolve taken in early youth con- 


uected with their own temporal advancement 


156 CONCLUSION. 


This one will be Lord Mayor; this other Prime 
Minister ; a third determines to own a fine estate 
near the place of his birth, a fourth to become 
head of the business in which he started as ap 
errand-boy. They did indeed achieve their ends, 
were faithful to the idea they had set before 
uhemselves as boys; but I doubt if we can put 
them anywhere but in the lower school of ideal- 
ists. For the predominant motive being self- 
assertion, their idealism seems never to have 
got past the personal stage, which at best is but 
a poor business as compared with the ‘rue thing. 
Try the case by a teste very one of you can ap- 
ply directly and easily. One boy here resolves 
— I will win this scholarship; I will be bead of 
the school ; I will be captain of the eleven; and 
does it. Another resolves — this school sha"\ be 
purer in tone, simpler in habits, braver and 
stronger in temper, for my presence here; does 
his best, but doubts after all whether he has sue 
ceeded. I need not say that the latter is the bes’ 
idealist ; but which is the most successful Clifton 
boy ? 

I must bring these remarks to an end, and ye 
have only been able to touch, and that very 


CONCLUSION. 157 


lightly, the fringe of a great subject. I am sure 
many of you have felt this; and I shall be sur- 
prised if some amongst you are not already lis- 
tening to me with a shade of jealousy in your 
minds, which might formulate itself somehow, 
perhaps thus: “Is this talk about idealism quite 
straightforward? Have n’t we heard all this 
before ? — Self-denial, simplicity of life, courage, 
and the rest, are they not the first fruits of Chris- 
tianity as we have been taught it? And we 
have been told, too, that this call of which you 
have been talking is the voice of Christ’s spirit 
speaking to ours. Can any good come of swad- 
dling these truths in other clothes which will 
scarcely fit them better, or make them more easy, 
or more acceptable ? ” 

To which I am glad to reply from my heart 
— Truly; soitis. Rem acu tetigesti. Christ is, 
indeed, the great idealist. “Be ye perfect as 
your Father in heaven is perfect,” is the ideal 
He sets before us — the only one which is per- 
manent and all-sufficing His own spirit com- 
muning with ours #s that call which comes to 
every human being. But my object has been to 
get you to-night to look at the facts of your own 


158 CONCLUSION. 


experience — and, as I have said already, the 
youngest has some experience in these deep mat 
ters — without connecting them for the moment 
with any form of religion. 

Supposing the whole Bible, every trace of 
Christendom, to disappear to-morrow, the same 
thing would, nevertheless, be occurring to you, 
and me, and every man. We should each of us 
still be conscious of a presence, which we are 
quite sure is not ourself, in the deepest recesses of 
our own heart, communing with us there and 
calling us to take up our twofold birthright as 
man — the mastery over visible things, and above 
all the mastery over our own bodies, actions, 
thoughts —and the power, always growing, of 
this mysterous communion with the invisible. 

It is, therefore, that I have abstained from the 
use of religious phraseology, believing that, apart 
altogether from the Christian revelation, the idea- 
ist will, and must always remain, nearest to the 
invisible world, and therefore most powerful in 
this visible one. 

I think this method is worth using now and 
then, because, no doubt, the popular verdict of thig 
time is against idealism. If you have not already 


CONCLUSION. 159 


felt it, you will assuredly feel, as soon as you 
leave these walls, that your lot is cast in a world 
‘ahich longs for nothing so much as to succeed 
in shaking off all belief in anything which cannot 
be tested by the senses, and gauged and measured 
by the intellect, as the trappings of a worn-out 
superstition. Men have been trying, so runs the 
new gospel, to live by faith, and not by sight, 
ever since there is any record at all of their lives; 
and so they have had to manufacture for them. 
' selves the faiths they were to live by. What is 
called the life of the soul or spirit, and the life of 
the understanding, have been in conflict all this 
time, and the one has always been gaining on 
the other. Stronghold after stronghold has failen 
till it is clear almost to demonstration that there 
will soon be no place left for that which was once 
deemed all-powerful. The spiritual life can ne 
longer be led honestly. Man has no knowledge 
vf the invisible upon-which he can build. et 
him own the truth and turn to that upon which 
he can build safely — the world of matter, his 
knowledge of which is always growing; and be 
content with the things he can see and taste and 
handie. Those who are telling you still in this 


160 CONCLUSION. 


time that your life can and ought to be lived in 
daily communion with the unseen — that so only 
you can loyally control the visible—are either 
willfully deceiving you, or are dreamers and vis- 
ionaries. 

So the high priests of the new gospel teach, 
and their teaching echoes through our literature, 
and colors the life of the streets and markets in a 
thousand ways; and a Mammon-ridden genera- 
tion, longing to be rid of what they hope are only 
certain old and clumsy superstitions, — which ° 
they try to believe injurious to others, and are 
quite sure make them uneasy in their own efforts 
to eat, drink, and be merry, — applauds as openly 
as it dare, and hopes soon to see the millennium 
of the flesh-pots publicly declared and recognized. 

Against which, wherever you may encounter 
them, that you young Englishmen may be ready ~ 
and able to stand fast, is the hope and prayer of 
many anxious hearts; in a time, charged on 
every side with signs of the passing away of old 
things, such as have not been seen above the 
horizon in Christendom since Luther nailed his 
protest on the church door of a German village. 


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No. 1137 


Date 
L. B. Cat. 


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H894 Cor 4 452638 






SCHOOL OF RELIGION 





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